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Rep. Clay Higgins

Representative for Louisiana’s 3rd District

pronounced klay // HIH-ginz

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Higgins is the representative for Louisiana’s 3rd congressional district (view map) and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 3, 2017. Higgins is next up for reelection in 2022 and serves until Jan 3, 2023.

Higgins is among the Republican legislators who participated in the months-long, multifarious attempted coup following the 2020 presidential election. Shortly after the election, Higgins joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the insurrection at the Capitol, Higgins voted to reject the state-certified election results of Arizona and/or Pennsylvania (states narrowly won by Democrats), which could have changed the outcome of the election. These legislators have generally changed their story after their vote, claiming it was merely a protest and not intended to change the outcome of the election as they clearly sought prior to the vote. The January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol disrupted Congress’s count of electors that determined the outcome of the presidential election with the goal to prevent President Joe Biden from taking office.
Photo of Rep. Clay Higgins [R-LA3]

Analysis

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 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 3, 2017 to Aug 9, 2022. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Clay Higgins sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Higgins was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:

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Does 1 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 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Higgins sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Armed Forces and National Security (20%) Education (18%) Crime and Law Enforcement (18%) Energy (14%) Immigration (9%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Finance and Financial Sector (7%) Health (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Higgins recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Higgins voted Nay

Higgins voted Nay

Passed 361/69 on Mar 9, 2022.

Higgins voted Nay

Passed 327/85 on Dec 21, 2020.
This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, a major government funding bill, which also included economic stimulus provisions due …

Higgins voted Nay

Higgins voted Nay

Passed 413/3 on Jan 8, 2020.

Missed Votes

From Jan 2017 to Jul 2022, Higgins missed 244 of 3,030 roll call votes, which is 8.1%. This is much 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.

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Primary Sources

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