Capitolwire: House, Senate strike deal on open records bill
Feb. 11, 2008
By Christopher Lilienthal
Staff reporter Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (Feb. 11) — After a rancorous House session last week where majority Democrats lost a GOP-supported motion to delay a vote on open records reform, the two caucuses found common ground Monday.
After early evening meetings between House and Senate leaders, the House approved an amendment to the open records legislation addressing some of the concerns voiced by House Republicans last week. The chamber then suspended its rules and unanimously approved the bill, sending it back to the Senate.
Among other changes, the amendment bans the release of information risking the safety of a person, shields identifying information of minors and allows realtors to use government land records for commercial purposes.
It also makes clear that the reports of the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission would be public, except for any working documents of the committee. The commission was excluded from prior versions.
Senate leaders were included in discussions with House leaders Monday afternoon on the amendment and appear to be on the same page, lawmakers and staff said.
Erik Arneson, spokesman and policy director for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, wrote in an e-mail: "We worked with both caucuses in the House to draft this amendment, which clarifies a number of issues raised on the House floor last week. . . . Sen. Pileggi will ask the Senate the concur in Senate Bill 1 tomorrow."
The underlying bill rewrites the state's 51-year-old Right to Know Law so that all state and local government and court records are presumed to be public, unless they fall within an exception or are protected by another law.
House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, hailed the "bicameral and bipartisan effort" that yielded what appears to be the final version of the open records overhaul.
Last week, however, DeWeese and Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, faced off with Republicans, who wanted to delay and amend the bill. During that confrontational debate, DeWeese and Shapiro challenged Republicans to vote against the bill, if they found it so deficient.
Instead, 100 Republicans banded together to delay a final vote on the bill until this Tuesday. That motion was approved on a 100-98 vote on Feb. 13 because several Democrats were absent.
The House reconsidered that motion to allow Monday's vote on the amendment and bill, after all sides reached agreement.
Shapiro said after the vote: "This is the most significant reform that we've passed. ... Democrats and Republicans are to be commended, and the biggest winners tonight are the people of Pennsylvania who can now have more confidence in their government that it is open and transparent."
DeWeese said after Monday's session that the bill, which was sponsored by Pileggi, was "absolutely ready to go to the governor's desk" last week. With 102 House Democratic members present ready to support it today without amendment, DeWeese said he could have pushed it through.
But he said House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, reached out to him earlier Monday and asked to work out a compromise.
"I didn't want to muscle this thing through," DeWeese said. "I wanted it to be bicameral and bipartisan. . . . I hope it augurs favorably for the future," when the House takes up the budget, energy, health care and property tax bills.
Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Smith, said the amendment was "about striking a balance between the public's right to know and the individual's right and expectation of privacy."
Miskin said House Republicans were pleased with several aspects of the amendment, although he said it didn't go as far as many members wanted on restricting 911 recordings from being released.
The amendment clarified that 911 recordings can be released only when a 911 officer or a court agrees to it, House GOP staff said. Miskin said members wanted more protections for potential witnesses and victims recorded on 911 calls and may advance legislation to do that.
The bill also requires 911 centers to release call logs but leaves it to the centers to decide how much information will be released. Rep. Russ Fairchild, R-Union, asked amendment sponsor, Rep. Chris King, D-Bucks, to make it clear that call logs are not the same as incident logs, which would include more personal information, which King did.
Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny, moved to delay last week's open records vote and has been a frequent critic of House Democrats during the months-long open records debate. He said on the floor Monday: "This is a happy day for Pennsylvania. The long, long road towards expanding the public's access to government records is about to be a journey completed."
Under the bill, the broader access to government records would apply to past, present and future records.
The bill also create a central office within the Department of Community and Economic Development to mediate access disputes.
The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association supports the bill, although some good government groups have said it doesn't go far enough.
Barry Kauffman of Common Cause of Pennsylvania said he is concerned that the new office to mediate disputes over public records should be housed within the State Ethics Commission, rather than a department under the governor's purview.
He and others have also criticized the bill for taking the Legislature outside the jurisdiction of the open records office when disputes arise over legislative records requests.
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