About
Clay Higgins (R-La.) was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, representing Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District. He is a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and the conservative Republican Study Committee, and won reelection in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement. Although Higgins had won easily in previous elections, he faced a tougher fight in 2022 but won out over seven primary challengers on Nov. 8, along with a nagging issue about shirking child support payments for his three children with his second wife.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Higgins attended a rally in 2017 held by the extremist Oath Keepers group. On Sept. 1, 2020, he threatened to kill armed demonstrators at a rally against police brutality, writing on Facebook that he would “drop any 10 of you where you stand.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Higgins showed his die-hard loyalty to Trump by helping to spread the Big Lie and voting against certifying Biden’s Electoral College win, impeaching Trump for inciting the mob, and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, Higgins joined 146 congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- Higgins voted against impeaching Trump for his role in instigating the attack on Congress and the Capitol, and for fanning the flames once the riot broke out. In a statement justifying his vote, he said that Democrats were pushing for impeachment “absent… evidence and with hate in their hearts” and that the articles of impeachment “narrate no elements of any crime. They stand upon opinion and conjecture, they confirm only disdain for President Trump and those who voted for him.” He predicted that “the American people will see this for what it is—an attempt by one party to weaponize impeachment and overturn an election.”
- On May 19, 2021, Higgins voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol.
The Big Lie
- Shortly after the election, Higgins issued multiple statements claiming that the process had been rigged.
- In a video uploaded to Youtube on Nov. 6, Higgins described Trump as “an anointed blessing to our nation,” and claimed he had “inside data that this election is compromised.”
- On Dec. 20, 2020, Higgins posted on Twitter that Biden’s inauguration would “mark the final hour of conspiracy to dismantle the American election process, and the first hour of conspiracy to dismantle America.”
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Higgins signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- On Dec. 15, 2020, Higgins joined 14 other House Republicans in sending a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), ostensibly to request a “briefing” on the subject of voter fraud in that state during the 2020 presidential election. The official letter restated the litany of unproven and discredited claims that had already been circulating on social media.