The state Senate Oversight Committee deserves credit for advancing a pair of bills that would for the first time and after a decade of effort finally subject the Legislature and governor to state transparency requirements.

The committee last week sent Senate Bills 669 and 670 to the full Senate for consideration. The bills would require lawmakers and the governor to hand over most of the documents generated by their office to the public when the public asks for them.

Currently, Michigan is one of only two states that exempt those officials from disclosure requirements, robbing the public of the chance to more fully understand the inner workings of the most powerful offices in the state and hold accountable the people who occupy those offices.

The Oversight Committee deserves credit, too, for strengthening the bills. Originally, for example, the bills would have exempted all communications between constituents and lawmakers, but the committee’s changes would require disclosure of communications between lawmakers and Michiganders from outside their districts and all communications between lawmakers and lobbyists.

Efforts to require transparency by lawmakers and the governor have repeatedly failed in the Legislature for about a decade, with many previous bills never even getting a committee hearing.

So we’re glad to see the bills advance out of committee. The bills still aren’t perfect, still allowing lawmakers and the governor to keep too many secrets, but last week’s committee vote was the first real significant action toward a more transparent state government, and we welcome it.

Now, the full Senate needs to pass the bills quickly, then the state House, and then Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who made increased transparency a campaign promise — needs to sign them into the law.