The state's incoming transparency official doubts his appointment will have any effect on pending revisions to the state's Open Records law.
Proposed updates to the seven-year-old law are still being hashed out by lawmakers. The tweaks would expand the law's scope to bring college campus police records into the public eye. Other changes would clarify parts of the law that have led to a deluge of record requests from groups like prison inmates and commercial interests.
Longtime state Senate aide Erik Arneson, picked by Gov. Tom Corbett to head the Office of Open Records last Friday, said most of the proposed updates to the so-called Right-to-Know law are widely supported.
"I don't think that whether I am physically located in this office or a couple hundred yards to the north makes any difference in the bill's likelihood of passage," said Arneson, who has been a spokesman to two Senate majority leaders, including the recently-deposed Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware).
Arneson's new gig begins Tuesday.
