HARRISBURG -- The state Senate will hold a rare Friday session tomorrow to correct drafting errors in major bills on slot machine gambling and lobbyists, but legislative critics say the real culprit for the slipups is the late-night, closed-door procedure often used by the General Assembly as it rushes to leave town.

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Senate leaders said they will meet tomorrow at noon to remove "minor" mistakes in wording from the gambling and lobbyist bills, so the legislation can be signed by Gov. Ed Rendell before the Nov. 7 election.

But that won't erase the sloppy procedural deficiencies too often seen in Harrisburg, said Tim Potts, leader of Democracy Rising PA, a citizens group that sprung up to protest last year's legislative pay raises.

He said that important legislation, such as the July 2004 slots law, the July 2005 pay raises, and the new slots amendments and lobbyist registration law, is hammered out behind closed doors at the last minute, as House and Senate members are eager to go home and campaign for re-election.

"This is Day 475 since the pay raise and they have done nothing to improve the quality of state government procedures," Mr. Potts said. "The way they do business is simply wrong. It doesn't matter how much lipstick and greasepaint you try to put on it, it's wrong."

Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville, jumped into the fray, saying this week's two major errors in bill drafting "demonstrate the urgent need to change the legislative process."

He used the mistakes as a chance to take a shot at Republicans, who direct the agendas in both the Senate and House.

The two bills "were passed by the Republican-controlled Senate in the middle of the night, precluding lawmakers and staffers from thoroughly reviewing the several hundred pages of documents and catching the errors."

Mark Harris, a Republican House candidate from a suburban Pittsburgh district, called the mistakes in bill-writing "a serious concern and need to be dealt with immediately. We can't afford this type of nonsense to continue."

Senate officials contended that both mistakes were minor "clerical errors" that had no real negative effect. They claimed House members were merely trying to embarrass the Senate by making a big deal out of something small.

Senate GOP lawyer Stephen MacNett contended that mistakes in drafting complicated, lengthy bills could happen "as easily at 2 p.m. as at 2 a.m."

Finger-pointing increased yesterday between the House and Senate, with both sides claiming the other was trying to use the drafting errors as an excuse to prevent reforms to the slots law from actually being enacted.

House Majority Leader Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, accused senators of "putting a poison pill" into the slots bill that they knew would knock it off track.

He said he's not sure "if this was an honest mistake. I'm suspicious that the defect was designed to derail the bill. It was a big mistake and has consequences. It's not the first time [senators] have played such games."

Nonsense, insisted Christopher Craig, a lawyer on the staff of Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, a leading advocate of bringing slots to Pennsylvania.

"It was a human error. It was not intentional," he said.

Senate Bill 862, the slots reform bill that was passed early Tuesday, mistakenly permits racetrack license applicants to give political contributions to state or local politicians.

Senate staffers said they meant to prohibit such contributions, but a simple oversight was made in the drafting of the bill. They meant to add racetrack applicants to the list but forgot.

Already prohibited from making such political contributions are track license holders, casino license holders, and applicants for slots licenses and slots manufacturer and supplier licenses.

"This problem is easily correctable" by adding racetrack applicants to the list of people who cannot contribute to state and local officials, Mr. Craig said. "The House has blown a small error all out of proportion."

Erik Arneson, an aide to Republican leader David Brightbill, agreed that the House criticism of the Senate is "a red herring."

Mr. Craig claimed that by overstating the situation, House members are showing that "they don't want to put gaming reform on the governor's desk for signature."

Mike Manzo, an aide to House Democratic leader Bill DeWeese, agreed with the GOP's Mr. Smith that the error could have had serious repercussions.

Mr. Manzo said the error could have consequences for southwestern Pennsylvania, because the two applicants for the last state harness track license are from Beaver and Lawrence counties. If the House hadn't caught the Senate's mistake, those groups could have made contributions to local politicians, he added.

"It's unfortunate that [senators] were in such a rush to get out of town," Mr. Manzo said. "We did the right thing by correcting the Senate's mistake and not allowing political contributions by racetrack applicants. We're not trying to hold up slots reform."