Clay Higgins continues his atypical quest for political relevance

For at least a moment earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins was willing to depart from his typical far-right, far-fetched stances to take a position most would label liberal – on a criminal justice matter, of all things. 

Yet just months later, the Lafayette Republican is back to his extremist ways. What’s different now is that he appears rudderless, permanently veering to the right to the point where it could be argued he’s merely spinning  in political circles. 

Heads turned during the spring session of the Louisiana Legislature when Higgins, a former policeman, gave his support to a proposal that would have let people put in Louisiana prisons by non-unanimous juries seek reviews of their cases. The lawman-turned-lawmaker urged the “swift passage” of the bill by state Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, arguing it preserved the U.S. Constitution’s rights to due process and a fair trial.  

“You could not have told me in my 42 years on this earth that I would have a letter from Congressman Clay Higgins supporting a bill that I brought,” Duplessis told colleagues on the Senate floor before they resoundingly rejected the measure. Opponents in the Republican supermajority said the policy change would overload prosecutors and court staff. 

In recent days, Higgins has come out firing on all cylinders but with no clear direction ascertainable. 

On Aug. 29, he sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson saying that he was stepping down from the House Homeland Security Committee after Rep. Andrew Garabino, R-N.Y., was named its new chairman. Higgins, a candidate for the post, appeared dejected after the vote.  

“My Republican colleagues have chosen an alternate path for the Committee that I helped to build,” he wrote to Johnson, “a path more in alignment with the less conservative factions of our Conference, factions whose core principles are quite variant from my own conservative perspective on key issues like amnesty, ICE operations, and opposition to the surveillance state.”

That’s the Higgins we’ve come to know – bitter, self-righteous and steered by conspiracy theories. As he still sits on the House Armed Services and the Oversight and Government Reform committees (chairing the latter’s law enforcement subcommittee), there will be ample chances for him to make bluster’s last stand. 

And by no means will Higgins limit himself to those matters. A week ago, he urged the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services to withhold federal funding from “organizations that push COVID vaccines on young children.” 

It followed his pledge on social media to “defund” the New Orleans Health Department for promoting the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidance on COVID-19 vaccines for children from 6 months to 2 years old. 

“State sponsored weakening of the citizenry, absolute injury to our children and calculated decline of fertility,” Higgins wrote in an Aug. 20 X post.

Call me a skeptic, but if there’s a group out there that’s least likely to be anti-fertility, it’s probably pediatricians. It’s not good for their business model.

Higgins’ latest play for political relevance came Thursday when he joined forces with Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., Oversight and Government Reform chairman, to investigate allegations that pharmacy chain CVS Health used “confidential patient information” to lobby the Louisiana Legislature.  

Caremark, a CVS subsidiary, is the prescription benefit manager for the health insurance plan that covers state employees in Louisiana. Attorney General Liz Murrill is suing the company, saying it used information gained through that contract to send text messages to state employees asking them to oppose proposed legislation. The bill in question would have prohibited prescription benefit managers from co-owning pharmacies. Ultimately, lawmakers opted for a less aggressive, transparency measure with the support of independent pharmacies.

Critics consider the co-ownership arrangement self-serving, as the management entities have a direct say in how their affiliated pharmacies price – and profit from – prescription drugs.

Comer and Higgins have requested CVS Health president and CEO David Joyner provide a slate of records to aid in their investigation. 

David Whitrap, who handles external relations for CVS, said in an email the company plans to respond to Comer and Higgins. With regards to the text messages, its communication with customers, patients and the community “was consistent with the law,” he said. 

As much as he wants to position himself to the far right, Higgins’ involvement in accountability efforts such as this makes him a centrist – at least on this issue. The battle against pharmacy benefit managers is a bipartisan one, with both sides looking to claim the win for bringing down prescription drug and health insurance costs.

Regardless, it’s a welcome moment of lucidity from Higgins, much like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s demand for the U.S. Department of Justice to produce all its files on Jeffrey Epstein. 

No one expects it, but it’s certainly welcomed.   

For Higgins, more frequent stances like this could help him emerge from the shadow of Louisiana’s more prominent Republicans in the House – Speaker Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Julia Letlow, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

But if history portends what lies ahead from Higgins, expect him to once again find his comfort zone on the fringes.