Lakhota
Diamond Member
Trump’s transition team has been asking for names of specific government employees.
WASHINGTON ― House Republicans resurrected a decades-old provision in their new rules package that allows lawmakers to lower the salary or eliminate the job of individual federal employees.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, championed the arcane provision, called the Holman Rule for the Indiana congressman who created it in 1876, as a tool to allow lawmakers to make targeted spending reductions or eliminate positions they deem unnecessary. In an interview with The Washington Post, Griffith said he would like members to use the Holman Rule like a sniper rifle instead of like a shotgun.
Democratic lawmakers representing districts in the Capitol region, where many federal employees work, said in a statement that the rule would “undermine civil service employee protections by stripping away necessary safeguards.” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) called the measure “the Armageddon Rule,” and said it’s “a backdoor way for Republicans to dismantle the federal workforce.”
Democrats also said they feared the rule gives Republicans the tools to root out individual federal workers who hold views or perform work that is not favored by the incoming administration. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team reportedly asked for the names of individual Department of Energy employees who worked on the Paris climate accord.
“The Republican Rules package provides them with the surgical tools necessary to reach into the inner workings of the federal government and cut away each part and employee that runs afoul of their ideological agenda,” Connolly said in a statement. “This, coupled with the President-elect’s proposed federal hiring freeze and the nomination of individuals to head agencies they openly oppose, could be devastating to the critical mission of the federal government.”
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) called the rule “political theatre.”
“With the inclusion of the Holman Rule in the House rules package, House Republicans have made it clear that they plan to continue their assault on our nation’s civil servants and to subject hardworking federal employees to the ideological and political whims of Congress,” Sarbanes said in a statement.
Congress has always held the power to appropriate or cut funds for executive-branch agencies. What makes the Holman Rule unique is that it allows individual members of Congress to cut the salaries or entirely eliminate the jobs of individual workers. These targeted cuts would override existing federal workplace protections.
More: New House GOP Rule Lets Lawmakers Fire Individual Federal Workers
I feel sorry for government workers who will now be subjected to this McCarthyism bullshit.
WASHINGTON ― House Republicans resurrected a decades-old provision in their new rules package that allows lawmakers to lower the salary or eliminate the job of individual federal employees.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, championed the arcane provision, called the Holman Rule for the Indiana congressman who created it in 1876, as a tool to allow lawmakers to make targeted spending reductions or eliminate positions they deem unnecessary. In an interview with The Washington Post, Griffith said he would like members to use the Holman Rule like a sniper rifle instead of like a shotgun.
Democratic lawmakers representing districts in the Capitol region, where many federal employees work, said in a statement that the rule would “undermine civil service employee protections by stripping away necessary safeguards.” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) called the measure “the Armageddon Rule,” and said it’s “a backdoor way for Republicans to dismantle the federal workforce.”
Democrats also said they feared the rule gives Republicans the tools to root out individual federal workers who hold views or perform work that is not favored by the incoming administration. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team reportedly asked for the names of individual Department of Energy employees who worked on the Paris climate accord.
“The Republican Rules package provides them with the surgical tools necessary to reach into the inner workings of the federal government and cut away each part and employee that runs afoul of their ideological agenda,” Connolly said in a statement. “This, coupled with the President-elect’s proposed federal hiring freeze and the nomination of individuals to head agencies they openly oppose, could be devastating to the critical mission of the federal government.”
Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) called the rule “political theatre.”
“With the inclusion of the Holman Rule in the House rules package, House Republicans have made it clear that they plan to continue their assault on our nation’s civil servants and to subject hardworking federal employees to the ideological and political whims of Congress,” Sarbanes said in a statement.
Congress has always held the power to appropriate or cut funds for executive-branch agencies. What makes the Holman Rule unique is that it allows individual members of Congress to cut the salaries or entirely eliminate the jobs of individual workers. These targeted cuts would override existing federal workplace protections.
More: New House GOP Rule Lets Lawmakers Fire Individual Federal Workers
I feel sorry for government workers who will now be subjected to this McCarthyism bullshit.