The narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives recently voted to give itself a streamlined way to fire state employees and shut down federal programs it doesn’t like — beyond the standard process of inquiry and debate.
This method, known as the Holman rule, has historically been used to push extreme political agendas through the political process without regard to the public interest. And it will probably happen again.
The rule, named after a Democratic congressman from Indiana who developed it in 1876, allows members of the House of Representatives to weaponize the normal process of preparing budget bills to fire government officials and shut down programs they Do not like.
Everything can be cut under the Holman rule, including environmental protection agencies, human rights programs, and programs to curb the sale of semi-automatic weapons.
Representative Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) attacked federal officials during the House debate as “unelected bureaucrats, the real, real swamp creatures here in DC.” to hold them accountable.”
Typically, staff or program cuts must be subject to an extensive review process to restructure or cut programs.
This process includes the drafting of a comprehensive bill, subcommittee and full committee hearings and debates, testimony and evidence presented by the administration of the president, press coverage of these steps, and adjustment of Congressional positions in light of those reporting.
Then there is a vote on amendments to the bill, known as comments, after which there is a separate committee vote on reporting the bill to the House as a whole, creating committee reporting sections with pros and cons — and more after that.
But Holman bypasses this whole process.
It allows program change or cancellation provisions to be included in budget accounts as long as the provision is believed to save money. Under Holman, individual members of the House of Representatives propose amendments during the plenary debate on a bill. As long as these changes reduce expenses, they are considered reasonable.
For example, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created a program to improve the Internal Revenue Service’s technology infrastructure and hire more accountants to focus on businesses and high-net-worth individuals. The program is estimated to cost $80 billion over a decade. Any proposed legislative changes to this program may become bogged down in discussions.
But under Holman, a critic of the program could simply drop an amendment to the portion of the budget that needs to be approved, including expenditures for Treasury Department operations, and terminate or amend the program. No one could prevent that unless they voted against the entire budget that finances this entire government department.
Similarly, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing stricter regulations limiting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, a potent greenhouse gas. A House critic of the methane control program can only appear in the budget bill, which includes spending on the EPA, a Holman provision that reduces the program director’s salary to $1 or terminates the program entirely.
As Jacqueline Simon, director of public policy for the American Federation of Civil Servants, says, this brutal rule is designed to “protect everything that protects the public service from political corruption – not just federal employees, but entire agencies. It is only for theater and creativity to wreak havoc and disrupt the operations of federal agencies, including law enforcement.”
The rule was dropped in 1983, but Republicans brought it back in 2017. When Democrats took over the House of Representatives in 2019, they dropped it again.
In a notable instance in 2017, House Republicans were angered by reviews of proposed legislation by staff at the Congressional Budget Office’s bipartisan Budget Analysis division. So they used Holman’s rule to try to disband that division and move their employees to another part of that agency.
The vote to end the split failed, but the use of the rule received strong encouragement from the Freedom Caucus, the same faction of the GOP that now favored the use of the rule.
In the current Congress, there are several scenarios in which Holman’s administration could play a role – with extremely problematic results. For example, GOP leaders must unite their party to pass controversial budget legislation. It may be necessary to allow fringe members to propose changes to Holman to cut or eliminate programs in order to keep their votes.
If the House of Representatives passes a spending bill with a Holman provision, that bill does not necessarily have to be blocked by the Senate. An attempt by the Senate Democratic majority to strike a provision passed by the House would need 60 votes to pass. That would require votes from at least nine Republican senators, which may not be possible.
A budget that includes Holman provisions would go to a conference committee created to iron out differences in legislation passed by both houses. Senate Democrats may be forced to agree to Holman’s offensive stipulations to gain approval from all factions in the House of Representatives to pass the conference bill and avoid a government shutdown.
This completes the circle where Holman’s rule began—when Southern Democrats tried to repeal Reconstruction-era laws and push those changes past President Ulysses S. Grant.
If the household bills laden with appalling Holman supplies reached his desk, would President Biden veto them?
Charles Tiefer is a law professor at the University of Baltimore Law School and served as a general counsel to the United States House of Representatives. This article is in collaboration with The conversation.
Source: LA Times