There's no excuse to keep the Legislature from opening state records to greater scrutiny -- and doing it now.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell favors expanding the state's Right-to-Know law. A bipartisan group of House members offered a bill in March for an open access law, and two measures have been introduced in the Senate.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, a Delaware County Republican, threw his support behind a change that will help pass an effective law. On Tuesday, the House speaker's reform commission recommended it, too.

Today a citizen trying to look at state records is put in a bind if an agency denies the request. Under present law, the person has to prove the information should be open; the state doesn't have to prove it should stay closed.

Sen. Pileggi said public testimony convinced him it is time to shift that burden of proof to the state, which would give citizens easier access. At issue are the kinds of records that reflect the basic workings of government, like lists of state employees and their salaries, the cost of transporting legislators to and from Harrisburg or how much lawmakers are reimbursed for meals at the Capitol. Any reasonable open-records reform would still allow certain records to remain confidential, like personnel files or a public employee's use of health coverage.

Changing the law so records are presumed open unless they are listed as exceptions is a strong statement that Pennsylvania now appears ready to send. If the Legislature ultimately votes that way, it will prove that it is finally serious about letting citizens see how government works.

Criminal defendants are presumed innocent until the government can prove their guilt. They don't have to prove they didn't commit the crime, and they don't have to prove that somebody else did. A new Right-to-Know law that presumes records are public would go a long way toward fixing a problem that has vexed Pennsylvanians since at least 1957, when the current law was enacted.

Support for this change in principle from Sen. Pileggi and the reform commission is welcome news. Drafting the appropriate exceptions to the law must be done carefully, and sparingly.

That's important, but lawmakers should not use it as an excuse to delay passage of a better Right-to-Know.