House Republicans aren’t giving in to order from the chief administrative officer to remove a website devoted to earmark reform. The site, earmarkreform.house.gov ^[1], remained active today despite an order from Dan Beard last week to shut it down.

House Minority Leader John Boehner is defying Beard’s order until he gets a formal response from the chief administrative officer, according to Roll Call ^[2] ($). A spokesman for Boehner called Beard’s decision “contradictory” because it reverses his office’s approval of the domain name last August.

At issue is whether the domain name violates House rules ^[3] established under Republicans in 1999. Beard contends that the rules prohibit the use of a slogan, and must be derivative of a member’s name. Using that standard, however, would call into question other domain names, most notably globalwarming.house.gov ^[4], which was established last year by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

The conflict offers Congress a perfect opportunity to reevaluate its rules governing websites ^[5], which, at nearly 10 years old, are in much need of revision to keep current with the times.