With the House back to legislating, several floor votes showed the limits of a tactic to single out individual federal employees.

Several amendments aimed at slicing the salaries of particular federal employees went down on the House floor Thursday, showing the limits of a rule adopted by Republicans earlier this Congress known as the Holman rule.

As part of debate on an energy and water spending package, lawmakers voted down efforts to trim the salaries of:

• Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
• Michael Connor, head of the Army Corps of Engineers
• Gene Rodrigues, assistant Energy secretary for electricity
• Andrew Light, assistant Energy secretary for international affairs

The amendment on Granholm went down 166-247, for example, so these weren’t close votes. The overall spending bill eventually passed 210-199 in essentially a party-line vote.
Now, the chamber has adopted some of these before, notably adopting an amendment by voice vote to trim the salary of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in late September as it debated a homeland security measure.

But, the caution here: None of these House measures will become law as written — and must still be meshed together with Senate versions. The failure of some of these amendment votes, however, suggests broader GOP discomfort with singling out particular federal officials, even those with whom they have significant policy agreements.