Rep. Brian Higgins

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2019 Report Card for Higgins.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Higgins is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Higgins has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Jan 17, 2020. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Brian Higgins sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on the Budget
• House Committee on Ways and Means
  Health, Social Security, Trade subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Higgins was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 3556 (112th): To designate the new United States courthouse in Buffalo, New York, as the “Robert H. Jackson United States Courthouse”.
• H.R. 918 (111th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 300 East 3rd Street in Jamestown, New York, as the “Stan Lundine Post Office Building”.
• H.R. 6318 (110th): To designate a portion of United States Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, New York, as the “Timothy J. Russert Highway”.
• H.R. 3339 (109th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2061 South Park Avenue in Buffalo, New York, as the “James T. Molloy Post Office ...

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Does 4 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Higgins sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Health (28%) Armed Forces and National Security (24%) Social Welfare (14%) Taxation (10%) Transportation and Public Works (10%) Government Operations and Politics (7%) International Affairs (7%)

Recent Bills

Some of Higgins’s most recently sponsored bills include...

• H.R. 5351: Short Sea Shipping Act of 2019
• H.R. 5237: Purple Heart Flag Act
• H.R. 4276: Border Officers Utilization for National Defense Act of 2019
• H.R. 3905: Social Security Administration Accountability Act of 2019
• H.R. 3654: Chiropractic Medicare Coverage Modernization Act of 2019
• H.R. 3341: Opioid Treatment Providers Act
• H.R. 3316: Neighborhood Homes Investment Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2005 to Jan 2020, Higgins missed 440 of 10,808 roll call votes, which is 4.1%. This is worse than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

• unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
• The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills