By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Clay Higgins
He's echoed Trump and Vance's lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets, among other things.
Republican U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, the lone member of Congress to vote against release of the files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has a long record of anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, and racist stances.
Higgins said he voted against the bill ordering release because innocent people would be injured by revelation of their names and personal information. However, “survivors’ personal information and other sensitive material can be withheld or redacted with explanations to Congress,” CBS News notes.
Related: Getting personal with Robert Garcia, who’s been leading the Democrats' release of the Epstein files
Higgins has represented Louisiana’s Third Congressional District, located in the southwestern part of the state, since 2017. He had previously served in the Army and worked as a police officer.
He has received all zeroes on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard since taking office. His record includes votes against the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed in 2022 and put marriage equality into federal law, and the Equality Act, which has never passed but would establish broad national civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ people.
In a 2021 Facebook video, he called the Equality Act “radical gender identity legislation” that “represents an attack on the individual and religious freedoms of every American.” His anti-transgender stances also include support for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill that would make it a felony to provide gender-affirming care for trans youth and opposition to the Biden administration’s trans-inclusive interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that bans sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.
He drew attention last year for echoing Donald Trump and JD Vance’s false accusations of pet-eating and other lawless behavior by Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, over which a Haitian group sought criminal charges. “These Haitians are wild,” he wrote on X. “Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP. All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.” He initially defended the post but eventually took it down and said it was intended only for “gangs.”
This year, he wrote to leaders of major social media platforms demanding that they delete posts and permanently ban users who celebrated the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Many experts on media and cyberspace ridiculed his call for censorship.
Charlie Kirk DID say stoning gay people was the 'perfect law' — and these other heinous quotes