The Holman Rule is a rule in the United States House of Representatives that allows amendments to appropriations legislation that would reduce the salary of or fire specific federal employees, or cut funding for specific programs. The rule was first developed in 1876 when a Democratic House majority faced a Republican president, and it was used from 1876 to 1895 and again from 1911 to 1983. It was brought back into use by the GOP in 2017, but it was removed at the beginning of the 116th Congress in January 2019, after Democrats had taken control of the chamber. However, following the 2022 midterms, the House Republican majority supported and adopted rules for the 118th Congress reinstating the Holman rule.

The Holman Rule allows House members to transform the normal process of compiling appropriation bills into vehicles to fire government employees and shut down programs they don’t like, without the standard process of review and debate. Anything is ripe for cutting with the Holman rule, from environmental protection agencies to government efforts for human rights to existing programs for addressing sales of semi-automatic weapons. The rule creates an overlay threat of micromanagement of the executive branch by individual members of Congress rather than through the proper committee process, and it destroys congressional transparency and the right of ethical members of Congress to perform their duties as mandated by the American people to appropriate the federal government through hearings, substantive debate and study, and testimony by professional witnesses.