The state House of Representatives yesterday unanimously passed a new open records law that would go a long way toward bringing Pennsylvania into the daylight and into the 21st century.

So why isn't that cause for celebration?

Because the kind of shenanigans that have long defined the country's largest full-time legislature resulted in this measure failing to make its way into law.

In a classic case of finger-pointing, leaders in the state Senate say the House members took too long to debate and adopt amendments to what started as Senate Bill 1. House leaders say the Senate took too long to pass its version of the bill in the first place.

The result: The job is half done, but, hey, it was time for the holiday break.

With its adoption late yesterday morning, and given the rules on how much time must pass between action in one chamber and the other, the bill could not have come up for a Senate vote until yesterday evening. Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi said that would not have given senators enough time to study the 19 amendments. We can't help but wonder if the Senate's decision to put off a vote until next year doesn't have something to do with one key change made by the House. It extended the presumption that records are open to include the Legislature itself, as well as financial records of the judiciary. Neither of those branches was covered in the version passed by the Senate last month.

Regardless, there's no reason the Senate could not have added another work day to get a vote in before leaving the Capitol for a month.

Imagine any employer who would tolerate workers who promise to get a job done for months, then say they can't deliver because it's time to go on vacation.

And legislators wonder why the public -- their employers -- remains angry, two years after their middle-of-the-night pay raise was rescinded. They just don't seem to understand that it's not about the raise anymore -- it's about the lack of results, the failure to accomplish what they'd been promising since their summer recess.