Balance of Power

In a significant reversal, the Obama administration on Friday said it would release lists of White House visitors compiled by the Secret Service and give in to a legal challenge by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which had filed four lawsuits seeking visitors' names.

The White House until now had adhered to the policies of previous administrations and kept visitor logs secret. That antagonized good government types, who've long suspected that lobbyists and former government officials wield outsize influence helping formulate policies. The matter reached a crescendo during President George W. Bush's first term, when environmentalists and watchdog groups unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the records of an energy task force chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"For the first time in history, records of White House visitors will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis," President Obama said in a statement. "We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside. Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process."

The administration said each month it will release online records detailing visits from the previous three to four months. It will withhold a small group of appointments deemed confidential for national security reasons, as well as confidential visits from figures such as possible Supreme Court nominees.

CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan called the decision "an important step in restoring transparency and accountability to our government."

The group had sued after the administrations of George W. Bush and Obama denied Freedom of Information Act requests for a series of records. Among other things, CREW was seeking details of visits to the Obama White House by health care and coal industry executives to determine the degree of their influence on health care and energy legislative proposals.