The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is scheduled to hold a hearing on May 3 entitled "White House Transparency, Visitor Logs and Lobbyists." This hearing could be an opportunity to focus on the substance of an important transparency issue if Congress decides not to play political games instead. Americans deserve to know who influences the government. The records of who meets with top government leaders should be open to the public.

The Obama administration has taken significant steps to make government more transparent, including posting the White House visitor logs online for the first time. This is still a new project, and it's not perfect. The records are repurposed from a Secret Service system designed for security reasons, not for transparency. In addition, a new report by the Center for Public Integrity shows there are a number of issues with the quality of the information in the records – for instance, data fields left empty.

Another limitation of the current system is that it only includes meetings that physically take place in the White House. Since White House security requires visitors to go through a cumbersome clearance process in advance, sometimes it’s easier to meet across the street. If an administration official meets off-campus to discuss policy with someone outside the government, that meeting should be disclosed, too.

These problems mean the logs fall short of the principle of disclosing who is meeting with White House decision makers. However, without the Obama administration's decision to release the records, we wouldn't have any information at all. Releasing this information was a political risk, and the White House should be commended for doing the right thing.

Still, we can do better. Congress should work with the administration to find ways to shine a light on who meets with key policymakers throughout government and to ensure that information is accurate, meaningful, and up-to-date.