A bill that would dramatically improve Pennsylvania's worst-in-the-nation open-records law has been approved by the state Senate and is awaiting consideration by the House.

All observers agree that the legislation is a major improvement over what has existed in the state for 51 years. But there remains division over whether the pending bill is as good as it can be.

The state's newspaper trade group, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, supports the pending legislation (SB 1) and is pushing for it to be quickly approved by the House and signed into law by Gov. Ed Rendell.

In a surprising split with the PNA, Pennsylvania Common Cause is taking a position that the bill still has a few flaws that need to be corrected.

Noting that the most recent changes to the proposed legislation occurred in secret meetings, the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters is suggesting that a flawed process will produce a flawed product. Similarly, Democracy Rising Pennsylvania, a good-government group based in Carlisle, is pushing for further improvement to the legislation, and echoing the League's point that there is obvious irony in the fact that a new version of the open-records law is the result of closed-door meetings.

The Rendell administration is siding with those who want to see more changes to the legislation. Steve Crawford, Rendell's secretary of legislative affairs, said the new bill contains holes "big enough to drive a truck through."

Despite their different positions on SB 1, all these groups agree that the pending legislation is a vast improvement over current law, primarily because it "flips the presumption" so that instead of assuming government records should be kept secret unless proven otherwise, the new law would assume most government records are public, placing the burden of proof on government to demonstrate why they should be kept secret.

But critics, including the Harrisburg-based Common Cause, note that the pending law seems to reveal that the legislature granted itself an exemption by special treatment dealing with appeals that for other entities go to the Office of Open Records. The legislature has decided, in SB 1 at least, that if its refusal to produce documents is appealed, the legislature itself will decide whether that rejection is warranted. And if the legislature confirms the rejection, those seeking the documents must file suit in Commonwealth Court, which involves money and time.

Critics of SB1 also note that its vague language about charging fees for producing documents could result in agencies setting very high fees to discourage records requests.

The same critics also note that SB 1 specifies financial penalties that max out at $1,500 for breaking the new open-records law — and that is too low to be a real deterrent for most large governmental bodies. The General Assembly or other large entity could simply take the position that it is easier to pay relatively small fines than to comply with the law. To state lawmakers wanting to keep records secret, it could be just another cost of doing business.

Democracy Rising and Common Cause make a strong case for trying to make the new open-records law as good as it can be. The PNA argues that a delay now poses the risk of delay or legislative mischief.

All laws in Pennsylvania should be the result of public debate. At least on a symbolic level, this is especially true for an open-records law. Given the dismal history of the General Assembly and past self-serving and brazen actions by party leaders, Pennsylvanians have a right to be suspicious of a bill that now emerges as "fast track" and is, at least partially, the result of closed meetings.

The pending SB 1 should be considered the floor, or minimum stand-ard, for any future open-records legislation. If legislative leaders resist fixing the flaws in the current bill in favor of reverting back to the existing law, that should spark an outcry across the state.

The long-sought replacement of Pennsylvania's weakest-in-the-nation open-records law is close, but not quite finished. Even if the current bill advances this week, and problems arise, they could still be fixed later. Still, it seems worth the effort to spend a little more time tweaking the bill to make it better. Because a House vote could be imminent, all eyes should remain on what happens to SB 1 this week.

To a certain degree, advocates for a good open-records law have prevailed. Now, it's just a matter of degree — a good bill or a better bill.