(Uniontown) Herald Standard, Jan. 12

Senate Majority Leader backs open records reforms

By Alison Hawkes
Of the Herald-Standard

The new Senate Majority Leader, Republican Dominic Pileggi, said he would sponsor a law giving the public the right to review legislative and state government spending records, a change that would strengthen one of the worst open records laws in the nation.

Pileggi, a four-year Chester County senator who quickly rose through the ranks to become the second-highest ranking member of the Senate, said he is "committed to promoting government integrity and doing so in a bipartisan manner."

"The voters delivered a message last year and we heard it loud and clear," said Pileggi at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon Jan. 22.

Pileggi said his open records proposal, which he will draft within a month, would broaden the scope of the public's legal rights to include legislative and judicial spending records, those of state-related universities and PHEAA.

Furthermore, the legislation would make it easier for citizens to file requests by allowing them to do so over e-mail. It would also shorten government response time from 10 days to five days and establish an "open records clearinghouse" to handle appeals when citizen requests are denied, Pileggi said.

Such legislation has been long sought after by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and by government reformers. In the House, freshman Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-South Union, has been taking the lead on the issue and plans to introduce a bill by Jan. 31.

"It sounds like some real progress," said Barry Kauffman, executive director for Common Cause Pennsylvania.

There will be at least one major difference between Pileggi and Mahoney's bills. Under Mahoney's bill the public would have a presumed right to internal government documents and the government agency would have to prove why a record should remain secret.

Pileggi said he wants to keep the approach of existing law, in which the legal presumption is on citizens to prove a record should be made public.

"We have a lot of case law that's been developed and rather than starting from scratch I'd like to build on what we've developed already," said Pileggi.

Kauffman said he hopes Pileggi reconsiders.

"That's a key element to making the law work well," Kauffman said. "You have to start with the presumption the records were created and maintained for the public interest and that they were paid for with public dollars and their ultimate benefit is for the public."

The federal government and most states approach open records from the presumption of a public right, he added.

Mahoney said he won't give up on the presumption issue easily, although he's happy to see interest growing in open records.

"No. That's one of the main things in my legislation," he said. "We're both going to have to come to a common ground to get the law passed. Whatever we get passed is going to be better than what we have and that's very important."

Mahoney said his bill so far has 15 cosponsors, and he believes the support of House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese, D-Waynesburg.

"I feel he's going to sign on and support the open records law," Mahoney said.

But DeWeese's spokesman, Tom Andrews, made no guarantees just yet. Andrews said the new Speaker's Legislative Reform Commission, to which DeWeese appointed Mahoney, will be looking at open records and other reform issues. The commission meets for the first time this morning.

"Maybe the thought will be the open records law doesn't need to be changed or maybe it can be done with the House rules," Andrews said. "I don't know how they're going to approach that."

Asked why DeWeese doesn't take the lead on open records in the House, as Pileggi has done in the Senate, Andrews said the issue should bubble up from below.

"He's more interested in having a bottom-up approach and letting rank and file offer input rather than come out with an opinion," Andrews said.

However, Pileggi's lead in the Senate could possibly advance the issue more quickly. The Senate is also ahead of the House in passing a series of internal rules reforms, including an 11 p.m. curfew on session times and a mandatory six-hour delay before amended bills could come to a vote.

Pileggi also said the chamber is greatly expanding what's available on the Internet, including roll call and committee votes, the full text of floor debates, and all official reports made by state agencies to the Senate.

He said he's also creating an online public comment box for all committee meetings, hearings, and specific bills under a new system the Senate is expected to unveil by May.

In addition, Pileggi said he wants to restrict political robo calls, the automated recorded telephone messages that have become increasingly popular, by banning their use from the state's do-not-call list.

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