Mar-a-Lago Act: Should the White House be Required to Release its Visitor Logs? (S. 721)

What is S. 721?

(Updated January 5, 2021)

This bill — known as the MAR-A-LAGO Act — would require the President to keep and maintain public visitor logs for all official business, whether it’s conducted at the White House or another location where the president and vice president regularly conduct official business. The requirement would take effect 30 days after enactment, and the public database containing the information would be updated every 90 days.

There would be several exceptions to the requirement:

• If a visit is purely personal or if revealing a record would undermine personal privacy, raise law enforcement concerns, or threaten national security.

• Logs of sensitive meetings would include only the number of visitors in attendance and their publication could be delayed until the president determines its no longer sensitive.

This bill’s full acronym stands for the Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act. It's named after a Florida golf course resort built by President Trump where he likes to host visitors for business meetings.

Argument in favor

The American public has a right to know who their president is meeting with behind closed doors, especially when the details of the meeting aren’t published. This requirement should be mandatory and cover any place the president and vice president do business.

Argument opposed

While the Obama administration released parts of its visitor logs, previous presidents didn’t and there’s no requirement to do so. Releasing the logs could have negative impacts on privacy, national security, and policy development.

Impact

The American public; people who meet with the president and vice president for business; and the White House.

Cost of S. 721

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced this bill to require that the White House publish visitor logs to any location where President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence regularly conduct business:

“It's simple: the American people have a right to know who has access to the president and who has leverage over this administration. By refusing to release the White House visitor logs, President Trump is only validating the rampant concerns about who may be pulling the levers in his administration. The president should end his administration's disturbing pattern of stonewalling information and immediately reinstate the previous administration's policy of publishing White House visitor logs. And given President Trump's unprecedented decision to regularly conduct official business at his private business properties, the Trump administration has an obligation to make public the visitor lists at places like Mar-A-Lago and Trump Tower."

The White House announced on Friday, April 14 that it wouldn’t continue with the Obama administration’s voluntary publication of visitor logs, citing “grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually” to the White House. It will, however, continue to disclose its Secret Service logs in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act.

This legislation has the support of three cosponsors, all of whom are Democrats.

Media:

• Sponsoring Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) Press Release
  
• AOL
  
• CNBC
  
• The Hill
  
• Politico
  
• USA Today