We appreciate the efforts by state Sen. Cris Dush, R-Pine Creek Township, to address an important issue.

“I find it deeply troubling that Pennsylvania’s long-standing (Right-to-Know) law mentions no criminal offense for destroying or altering records subject to a RTK request,” said Dush, chairman of the State Government Committee, according to an article in last weekend’s edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. “Not surprisingly, the rule of law is entirely thwarted whenever government officials or their staff intentionally dispose or suppress records that have been requested under RTK provisions, and which the public has every right to examine.”

We agree and we are happy that the legislation sponsored by Dush would make such actions a third-degree felony.

We believe Pennsylvanians deserve and frankly need transparency in their state, county and municipal government. Government officials reaching decisions in the open, based on information readily available to all Pennsylvanians, is an essential component of voters reaching decisions on how to best cast their ballots. Without transparency, the public cannot hold public officials accountable.

The deletion of emails central to how the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro handled complaints on sexual harassment against a staff member, cited appropriately by Dush in explaining his motivation, is a clear example of voters’ need for that type of accountability.

Other questionable decisions, at all levels of government, further demonstrate that there needs to be deterrents to obscuring information that often can and often should weigh on voters’ decisions. In the same edition of the Sun-Gazette — on the same page even — a township is engaged in a protracted legal struggle to obscure the costs of failing to adequately oversee an employee who ultimately stole hundreds of thousands of tax dollars.

The Senate passed Dush’s legislation. We hope the state House follows suit and that the governor — despite his own record of skepticism about full transparency — signs the bill into law.

— Williamsport Sun-Gazette