HARRISBURG -- Citizens groups and General Assembly critics often cite a 2002 study that branded Pennsylvania's open records law as the 48th worst in the nation.

State legislators hate hearing that statistic, so both the Senate and a House committee took action yesterday to improve the situation.

Senate members voted 48-1 in favor of Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester. He said the bill, which now goes to the House, will make many state and local government records more accessible to the public than they are now.

"Pennsylvania needs a strong open records law to encourage transparency in government and increase the public's confidence," said Mr. Pileggi.

Legislators know that procedural changes are needed to counteract two years of public complaints over the now-repealed pay raises they gave themselves and the large bonuses given last year to legislative staffers.

"The word 'reform' has been uttered often over the past year," said Mr. Pileggi. "There is no reform that comes close to matching a good open records law."

He dealt with several outside groups in fashioning the bill, including Common Cause/Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

PNA legal counsel Teri Henning said that while the bill isn't all she'd like, "it's a positive step for Pennsylvania in terms of access to open records. It's an improvement and not an insignificant one."

Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, voted "yes" on the bill, even though he didn't like the fact that it doesn't subject the Legislature itself and the courts to the same strict open records standard that's imposed on executive branch and local agencies.

For those latter two groups, the bill reverses the longtime presumption that most records should be closed to the public and news media. The new presumption is that most records are open, unless an agency can make a valid case for not releasing them. But there is no such openness for records of the Legislature or judicial branch of government.

For that reason, Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, was the lone "no" vote.

"He didn't feel the bill went far enough," said spokesman Gary Tuma. "If we're going to strong open records law it should apply broadly."

Mr. Pileggi said the bill requires the Legislature to provide 17 different kinds of records, including all financial records, committee meeting minutes, recorded votes and audits of the Legislature.

His bill is based on what is done in New York state, which has been ranked among the top three states in the United States by the University of Florida's Citizen Access Project, which monitors public access laws, he said.

The bill exempts e-mails and letters between legislators and constituents from release.

Executive branch agencies whose records would be presumed as public include the governor's office, attorney general, state treasurer, auditor general, and independent and state-affiliated agencies such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, State System of Higher Education and Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

Also, the top 25 salaries of officials at state-related schools would be public.

The Senate bill contains 28 exceptions, or types of information that don't have to be released, including homeland security, national defense, computer hardware or software, a person's Social Security number and medical information, a company's trade secrets, autopsy reports, certain real estate appraisals, labor negotiation strategy and criminal investigations.

Ms. Henning said some exceptions are too broad, such as noncriminal investigative information.

The Senate bill has another important provision: creating a new state agency to oversee the process of granting access to records and to hear appeals if access is denied. The Open Records Clearinghouse would appoint appeals officers for each executive branch department and provide training in the new law for employees of all executive branch agencies and local governments.

Meanwhile yesterday, the House State Government Committee voted 27-0 for its own version of an open records law, House Bill 2072, proposed by Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fayette. It's similar to the Senate bill, but has at least one major difference. It treats all four government groups -- executive branch, legislature, courts and local agencies -- the same, presuming that most records are open. The House wouldn't exempt the Legislature and the courts from this stricter standard, as the Senate bill does.