HARRISBURG — A bill to expand the public's access to government records overwhelmingly passed the state Senate on Wednesday, although a clash could be looming with a competing House bill that is considered stronger.

The Senate bill's sponsor, Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, rejected criticism that it does not go far enough, saying it compares favorably with the strongest laws in other states and upholds the spirit of making government more open.

"The Senate of Pennsylvania can be proud of what we are doing today," Pileggi said in his floor comments Wednesday. "Reform may very well have been the word uttered most often in this building over the past year. There is no other reform that comes close to matching the impact of a strong open records law."

The Senate approved the measure 48-1.

For nearly a year, the chamber has been working on the bill under intense scrutiny from public officials across Pennsylvania and advocates seeking more transparency in government. Approving a stronger open-records law has been a pet cause of lawmakers seeking to improve the Legislature's image in the wake of public outcry over the now-repealed pay raise law of 2005.

The only vote against the bill was cast by Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, D-Philadelphia, who wanted it to provide the same broader access to the Legislature's records as it does to records of the state's executive branch and local governments.

"He thinks that if you're going to have an open records law, it should apply across the board," said Fumo's spokesman, Gary Tuma.

The bill goes to the House, where the State Government Committee on Wednesday approved a recently introduced bill that is modeled on the Senate version.

The House committee vote was unanimous, despite Republican complaints about what they called the committee's hastily scheduled meeting and disagreements over a provision that deals with how appeals to rejected records requests will be handled.

Both bills would make numerous changes to the Right-to-Know Law, including expanding it to cover the financial records of the legislative and judicial branches, as well as those of the state's college-loan agency, community colleges and the four state-related universities — Penn State, Temple, Pitt and Lincoln.

In addition, both bills would make what advocates of greater openness in government say is a crucial change: defining as public all records of the state's executive branch and local government agencies, unless a record falls into one of 28 exceptions. Current law carries a much narrower definition of a public record.

The availability of legislative records would be more narrowly tailored under the bills, which list 17 specific categories. In the past, legislative officials have sometimes resisted releasing some of those records.