BRADY ISSUES LETTER ON URL REGULATIONS
February 25, 2008
Hon. John A. Boehner
Minority Leader
H-204 The Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Minority Leader Boehner:
I have learned of your letter to the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) regarding the operation of a website with a URL that was initially and erroneously allowed by House Information Resources (HIR). Unfortunately, this domain name contravenes a House Administration Committee regulation adopted in 1999, at a time when you yourself sat on the Committee. The policy is spelled out in both the Member and Committee Handbooks, and further applies to all web sites maintained within the House firewall as follows:
URL Regulations
The URL name for an official website located in the HOUSE.GOV domain must:
1. Be recognizably derivative or representative of the name of the Member or the name of the office sponsoring the website.
The URL name for an official website located in the HOUSE.GOV domain may not:
1. be a slogan [slogans are currently prohibited from appearing on official stationery]
2. imply in any manner that the House endorses or favors any specific commercial product, commodity, or service. [this language currently governs the content of webpages].
For URL’s in use before October 1, 1998, these regulations will become effective March 1, 1999.
This regulation has been enforced consistently since its adoption. While your letter suggests some political motive behind the timing of the current enforcement of the policy, I can assure you that it was not until your site was launched that Committee staff became aware of the violation of the Committee policy and conveyed that information to the CAO. No content regulation was intended. However, in an effort to provide transparency, eliminate confusion, and encourage visitors to access the information at the current URL, I will be happy to direct the CAO to facilitate your moving the content to an acceptable URL, and establishing a redirection notice for a reasonable period of time, so that anyone looking for the information using the old URL can find it.
I am confident that your needs can be accommodated within the rules of the House. Please let me know if I can provide you with any further information.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brady
Chairman