PA's New "Right to Know" Law: A Work in Progress

Pennsylvania's new "Right to Know " law, which goes into effect
next month, governs public access to public records. Its
"Sunshine" law governs access to public meetings. As reported
today in the Erie Times-News, the General Assembly made some
significant improvements to the existing Right to Know law earlier
this year, which were signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell in
February. It did not address the Sunshine law, which remains
woefully deficient.

The new Right to Know law leaves much to be desired in terms of
transparency, and should merely be viewed as a work in progress.
Right to Know advocates should continue to pressure legislators
for more transparency and openness. They should also continue
their efforts to reform the commonwealth's Sunshine law.

The new Right to Know law’s two most important features are its
unprecedented inclusivity; it draws virtually every publicly
funded agency,including for the first time, the legislature,
state universities and some private recipients of public funds,
within its reach;and it shifts from the requester to the agency
the burden of proving whether information being sought is public.

While the new law requires public agencies to assume that all
records in their hands are public unless they are expressly
exempted, it also establishes a staggering number of exemptions.
There are 30 broad categories of exemptions, plus numerous
sub-categories, bringing the total number of exemptions to
nearly 100.

The new Right to Know law could, with only a slight bow to
hyperbole, be subtitled, the Pennsylvania Continuous Attorney
Employment Act of 2008, as the commonwealth’s hundreds of
agencies at every level wrestle to comply with its intermingling
provisions, laden with legal jargon, especially during the
early years of its implementation before its provisions become
settled law.