Albany opened the door to government a little more recently when Gov. David A. Paterson signed two bills that will expand what is already one of the nation’s strongest open government laws. Paterson and the Legislature deserve New Yorkers’ thanks for this.

One of the new measures will require open meetings to be held in spaces large enough to accommodate the public when possible. In addition, governments must establish specific rules for photography, audio and video recording at public meetings.

The other bill gives judges additional tools when a government body has been shown to have met in secret. Violators now can be required to attend training sessions with the State Committee on Open Government. Paterson vetoed a previous bill that included fines on municipalities, arguing that the fines would be paid with taxpayer dollars.

These are reasonable and useful improvements, passed by the Legislature during Sunshine Week, a period in which the media call attention to issues of open government. Many factors support a strong democracy, but none is more important than transparency in government and access to public information. Without those tools, voters are blind. They can be easily deceived.

New York has long had a strong open-government tradition, but it can always stand improvement. Indeed, the state is otherwise so dysfunctional—and corrupt—that oversight and transparency are especially critical tools. These laws add more protection for the public from government officials whose actions, purposely or not, deprive the public of the information it needs to monitor performance. Elected officials, of course, still can thumb their noses at any electorate that won’t act on revealed flaws in the way they govern; it’s still up to the voters not only to know what’s going on, but to act on that knowledge at election time.