To some voters, part of the appeal of candidate Tom Wolf was that he wasn’t a career politician. But in firing the executive director of the state’s Office of Open Records, Democrat Gov. Wolf looked highly partisan, just another politician.

One of Wolf’s first official acts as governor was to fire Erik Arneson, who was appointed by outgoing Gov. Tom Corbett in the final month of his administration.

The whole affair is turning into a political and legal battle, precisely not the kind of cloud that should be hanging over the state’s Office of Open Records.

The implication of Wolf’s action is that the Open Records office can be used as a political tool, to protect the party in power and possibly embarrass the opposition party.

The 2009 revision of the state’s Right-to-Know law created the Office of Open Records. That law established a six-year term with the idea that the position would not align with four-year terms of governors, and would therefore be seen as nonpolitical.

While it’s true that the state constitution gives governors the power to fire people appointed by another governor, there are limits to that power. And those limits are at the center of a lawsuit that ended up in Commonwealth Court last week.

Arneson and the Senate Republican caucus filed the lawsuit after Wolf fired Arneson hours after Wolf was sworn in as governor.

The Office of Open Records is intended to allow citizens and the media to hold public officials accountable. Requests to the Open Records office are often filed to reveal actions of public officials that the officials intended to hide from public view.

A nonpartisan Open Records office is essential to a functional democracy — and the office is a necessary tool for finding out what public officials are doing when they would rather hide their actions from public view.

Arneson, who had served as the spokesman for the Republican Senate caucus, could be seen by some as a political appointee. But he also was a key person involved in revising the state’s Right-to-Know Law. And, by most accounts, he is well respected on both sides of the aisle.

The firing of Arneson on the first day of Wolf’s administration sent a message that runs counter to Wolf’s campaign — that he was not a typical politician. By dumping Arneson as head of the state’s Office of Open Records, Wolf looks as though he views transparency as one-sided or as a political weapon or shield.