About
Michael Clifton Burgess (R-Texas) has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since January 2003, representing Texas’ 26th Congressional District. He won reelection in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement and 69% of the vote in his heavily Republican district.
A medical doctor, Burgess has more than three decades of experience working as an OB/GYN in north Texas and is proud to have voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—aka Obamacare—more than 50 times. In 2011, Burgess called for President Obama’s impeachment, never mentioning any impeachable offenses but simply saying, “It needs to happen.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Burgess helped spread the Big Lie by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the process and downplaying the severity of the mob threat to the peaceful transition of power. He objected to certifying President Biden’s Electoral College win and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the riot and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- Within hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Burgess joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election.
- Burgess made light of the insurrection by comparing it to the 2010 Obamacare protests and tweeting, “We’ve had bad protests [in D.C.] before…. It’s what we do here.”
- Burgess voted against impeaching Trump for his complicity in the Jan. 6 insurrection. He argued that doing so would set a bad precedent (despite his own totally baseless call to impeach Obama in 2011). “Since impeachment [has] historically… been such an infrequent activity, every decision this body makes is going to affect subsequent discussions of this activity throughout the course of history.”
- Burgess voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the violent assault on both the Capitol and the congressional members and staffers at work inside. He dismissed the committee as overly partisan and said, “The outcome of this investigation has already been written. Democrats have been publicly excoriating President Trump for months.”
The Big Lie
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Burgess signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin
- After objecting to the certification of electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania, Burgess explained that there had been “unprecedented voting irregularities, overreach by government bureaucrats, and the lack of ballot integrity and security.” He then called on the 117th Congress to improve electoral security.
- In January 2022, when The Texas Tribune asked Burgess if he believes that President Biden was elected legitimately, the question went unanswered (neither the congressman nor anyone from his office responded).