Republicans in Congress Reinstate Arcane Rule Allowing Them to Punish Federal Workers by Cutting Their Pay – to One Dollar
Climate Change Denying Conservative Congressmen Could Go After EPA Scientists
Wasting no time, the Republican led newly seated 115th Congress has crafted legislation and reworked legislative rules that solidify the party’s hold on legislative power. But the GOP also touched off controversy as evidenced by a failed attempt earlier this week to neuter the House Ethics Office, which oversees investigations into acts of corruption by Members. Â
During the public hubris over the efforts to decimate the ethics office and as part of a larger rules package, a member of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus, Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) (photo, left), has reconstituted the Holman Rule. The arcane edict, likely unconstitutional, first introduced in 1876 by Indiana Democratic Congressman William Steele Holman (photo, right), was used to eliminate political patronage jobs before the federal workforce shifted to a nonpolitical civil service system. It was eventually dropped in 1983 at the behest of then House Democratic Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill after he objected to spending cuts that had been put forward by Republicans and some conservative Democrats in the budgetary process that year.Â
The Holman rule would give Congress the power via the appropriations process to specifically target federal programs and workers, in fact allowing lawmakers to cut the annual pay of any individual federal government worker down to one dollar. The rule would allow any House member to propose an amendment on a spending bill that would cut a specific federal program or the jobs of specific federal employees, by slashing their salaries or eliminating their positions altogether – for whatever reason.
For example, climate change denying Republicans could target and cut specific EPA or NASA programs that study and produce reports on climate change, and send a strong message to government scientists that they could be next if they produce facts in opposition to conservatives’ beliefs.
As @fivefifths noted, the Holman Rule lets Congress skirt anti-discrimination laws. Watch out, civil servants from marginalized communities.
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) January 6, 2017
Prior to the rule being re-implemented, Congress could cut an agency’s budget, but a specific program, employee, or groups of employees, because of civil service protections, were immune. Â
A spokesperson for Griffith’s office told NCRM that the four term congressman is frustrated that many federal programs he deems wasteful and unnecessary have been largely untouchable, including one in particular the spokesperson said, which is budgeted for $80 million dollars that pays for the care of wild horses on federal land. Griffin has previously stated his intent to increase the powers of individual members of Congress to reassign workers as policy demands, bypassing the Executive Branch via budgetary considerations.
Speaking to reporters, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said that the Holman Rule gives Congress a “chance to change how government works, something voters asked for when they voted for Trump,†adding, “This is a big rule change inside there that allows people to get at places they hadn’t before.â€
Reaction to the rule change came swiftly. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD) railed against what he sees as an overarching rules package, which includes the Holman provision, in a floor speech on Tuesday.
“Republicans have consistently made our hard-working federal employees scapegoats, in my opinion, for lack of performance of the federal government itself,†Hoyer said (video above). “And this rule change will allow them to make shortsighted and ideologically driven changes to our civil service.â€
House Democrats and even some Republicans who are opposed to the rule are joined by federal employee unions and advocacy groups who are alarmed given recent actions by the Trump Transition Team that could portend unfair application of the rule. Citing recent inquiries by the Trump transition team for a list of Energy Department scientists who have worked on climate change, the advocates for federal employees are concerned bureaucrats could be targeted for political reasons. One advocate, Jeffrey Neal, former personnel chief at the Department of Homeland Security and now a senior vice president for ICF International, told The Washington Post it “creates a lot of opportunity for mischiefâ€Â because lawmakers could act to reduce the salary or eliminate the job of government officials they don’t like.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
