A recent change to a proposed constitutional amendment exempts the Legislature from the measure aimed at opening more government meetings and documents to public inspection.

One of the proposal's co-sponsors isn't crazy about the exemption, but officials at the California First Amendment Coalition said they are willing to give the Legislature a pass in order to ensure that Californians will have a chance to vote on the measure.

"We felt that this was the best we could do within the legislative process," said Kent Pollock, executive director of the group.

"By making these changes, we have been assured it would fly though the Senate and the Assembly."

Last year's attempt to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot bolstering public records access died in the Assembly. Previous attempts to strengthen current laws were vetoed by Gov. Gray Davis.

While the latest draft of the measure exempts the Legislature, it still would thrust one of the nation's stiffest open records and meetings requirements upon the executive branch, city councils, county boards of supervisors, school boards and smaller bodies appointed by them.

One the whole, the proposed constitutional amendment would give citizens much greater access to government proceedings, Pollock said.

Charles Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center at the Missouri School of Journalism, said making access to government a constitutional right would be a significant achievement.

If the measure is approved by a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature, voters could weigh in on the issue at the next statewide election. The measure is currently awaiting Senate approval. Davis' signature is not required for proposed constitutional amendments.

The bill's author, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said the changes had been "worked out by the (legislative) staff." He said he was not prepared to talk Monday about the reasons for the change, but that he trusted the staff's judgement.

"If it is in there, I guess it should be in there," Burton said.

Senate Secretary Greg Schmidt said SCA 1, with the recent amendments exempting the Legislature, would "protect what is currently protected under the law." It would not, he said, subject the Legislature to litigation likely to follow as media outlets and interest groups test open records and meetings limits that would be created by the constitutional amendment and subsequent court decisions.

Forcing legislative openness was never the major thrust of the effort, sponsors said.

The amendments were accepted after a "lengthy and sometimes emotional debate" between the sponsors and senior Senate staff, according to a published report on the California Newspaper Publishers Association's Web site, the measure's second co-sponsor.

Association staff directly involved with the measure were not available Monday.

The League of California Cities opposed last year's effort, but is comfortable enough with this year's language to support the measure.

"We believe that people should have a right to information about their government," said Megan Taylor, a league spokeswoman. She declined to say if that right should extend to the Legislature any more than it already does.

It not uncommon for legislatures to let themselves off the hook when drafting open records and meetings laws, said Davis of the Freedom of Information Center.

"There are a heck of lot of states that exempt the Legislature from the public records laws. That is because the Legislature writes the public records law," he said.

While the measure -- taken as a whole -- would be good for Californians, he said the situation "smacks of hypocrisy" and would be different if city councils wrote states' open records laws.