Will Trump slash civil servant pay to $1 using Armageddon Rule ？ - Guardian

Before he even won, Donald Trump had already threatened civil liberties and the central tenets of democracy when he said he wanted to jail his political opponent and sue the New York Times. Now Congress has made it possible for him to undermine something even bigger: government writ large.

An arcane procedural rule allowing lawmakers to slash the pay of specific federal workers down to as low as $1 was quietly revived as part of appropriations negotiations last week. The so-called Holman Rule, named for the congressman who dreamed it up in 1876, is just the latest sign the Trump administration might target members of the civil service – the nation’s single largest employer – for politically motivated reasons.

While such amendments would still have to be approved by majorities in the House and US Senate, with Republicans in control of both chambers and voting in unison, that’s not an implausible scenario. Take, for instance, the fact that all but three Republican members of the House ultimately voted for the passage of this rule as part of the spending package, despite early Republican grumblings behind closed doors.

It’s not just this newly revived rule that makes federal workers vulnerable. As Maureen Gilman, legislative director for the National Treasury Employees Union, told the Washington Post last week: “This is part of a very chilling theme that federal workers are seeing right now.”

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The rule’s reinstatement follows a string of chilling moves by the Trump administration’s transition team, which already announced a freeze on federal hiring during Trump’s first 100 days, and a series of cabinet nominations that are antithetical to the agencies represented. (Consider, for starters, the climate denier who Trump would have lead the Environmental Protection Agency). Last week, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration, in a break with precedent, would be denying politically appointed ambassadors a grace period in vacating their posts.

That doesn’t begin to cover all the norms that may be violated, or federal benefits that may be at risk, under the new administration. Pension plans could be slashed and automatic raises eliminated; even the modest 2.1% raise President Obama awarded federal workers in January last year could be rolled back.

Regardless of whether any of that comes to pass, the implicit threat is clear.

And relatedly, even if the Holman rule is never once enacted, its chilling effect will be significant. Employees whose job description makes them politically vulnerable are already leaving government and there’s expected to be something of an exodus in the weeks and months ahead. As one federal worker told the writer Marin Cogan: “I have no doubt, that what we will see is the purge of good, committed, and competent talent out of federal service.”

For those who opt to stay, the pressure to self-censor in certain departments will be tremendous. Whether government employees admit this to themselves or not, the law of self-preservation dictates anyone working on potentially partisan issues, like women’s health or climate, will have a tremendous incentive to make their work politically palatable – or simply disappear.

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It’s difficult to say with much precision which individuals or teams within agencies will be targeted using this provision. When asked this very question, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to say. But last month many of those who work on climate change were quietly put on notice that their jobs are at risk.

This was the subtext of the Trump transition team’s demand that the EPA hand over a list of names for all the people in their agency working on international climate change treaty negotiations. That the department pointedly refused to cooperate doesn’t insulate employees from the knowledge that their names would have been on that list. It’s especially cold comfort given that their protection from the Trump administration will last, at this point, less than two more weeks.

Most insidious of all, perhaps, is the fact that there’s no way of knowing how pervasive this chilling effect will be – only that it will be pervasive. Sure, we can know how many federal employees opt to leave government, but there’s no way to measure how many of those who stay will submit to having their hands tied or accept being blindfolded to science in the interest of saving their jobs.

And that, perhaps, is the one silver lining to the resurfacing of what’s been called the “Armageddon rule”. It may spell the end of a politically insulated federal government – but if lawmakers use it, at least Trump and the Republican party’s witch-hunt will be visible to the public eye. Then, everyone will be able to see their bullying for what it is.