HARRISBURG — A House committee late Wednesday approved a dramatically reworked draft of a bill to amend Pennsylvania's open records law despite strong opposition from a newspaper association and complaints that drastic changes had been made at the last minute.

The House State Government Committee, with one Republican joining all Democrats in voting for it, approved a top-to-bottom rewriting that was sent to committee members earlier this week, along with a dozen or so more modest amendments.

The bill would accomplish the "flip of presumption" that the state's newspapers and other open-records advocates have long sought, making all records outside a list of exceptions available to the public and forcing agencies to justify their reasons for keeping records secret.

It also would establish an office within the State Ethics Commission to handle access disputes and would require new financial disclosure from the four "state-related" universities: Pitt, Penn State, Lincoln and Temple.

But the comprehensive amendment also would make many other changes to the law, and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association said it was strongly opposed.

Among its complaints, the association said the Legislature went to such lengths in trying to keep its own contacts with the public secret that the draft bill foreclosed access to many records that are available under the existing law.

The bill applies to all new records but does not make pre-existing records public if they were not available under the current law. It also would not make any records public if the courts have previously ruled they are not.