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.  

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. 

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.

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.  

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.”

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.”

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 mischief” because lawmakers could act to reduce the salary or eliminate the job of government officials they don’t like.