Inside Spotlight PA’s fight to unseal lobbyist communications with the legislature

By Angela Couloumbis
Spotlight PA
HARRISBURG — Deep within Pennsylvania’s 36-page Right-to-Know Law, a clause says that correspondence between a state lawmaker and a person seeking their help is off-limits to the public — unless that person is a lobbyist.
For years, the legislature has seemingly treated the language as if it doesn’t exist, summarily rejecting all requests for its emails, letters, or other forms of communications regardless of who was on the sending or receiving end.
This past summer, Spotlight PA decided to put the law’s lobbyist clause to the test by requesting from both the state House and Senate copies of communications between legislators and a narrow group of well-known lobbyists.

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