House Democrats are about to lose a seat in the House of Representatives on Friday with the early resignation of Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) from the deep blue 26th Congressional District, which includes Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
Despite having the opportunity to deliver a final speech on the House floor, he has opted for a quieter exit, stating, "I've had plenty of time to speak on the record on the House floor on various issues. I'm just going quietly."
Higgins has served in Congress since 2005, and though he was in a safe seat, he claimed he’s become disillusioned with the job. When he announced his intention to retire back in November. “It’s just a time for change, and I think this is the time,” Higgins said at the time.
“Congress is not the institution that I went to 19 years ago. It’s a very different place today,” he continued. “We’re spending more time doing less. And the American people aren’t being served.”
Higgins blamed this on Republicans.
“It’s all individuals that have weaponized the legislation-making process,” he said. “And this is where I think the current leadership of the House has failed miserably. They’re the poster child for dysfunction right now, as evidenced by their own inability to identify what they want and to develop a strategy to achieve what it is they want.”
Even though elections will be held in November, it appears that the seat won’t remain vacant until the next Congress is seated. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) is expected to schedule a special election within the next ten days. That election should take place in April.
This is not the first special election Hochul has had to schedule recently. In December, she was tasked with scheduling a special election to fill the seat vacated by the expulsion of Rep. George Santos. Hochul infamously thought she had the power to fill the vacancy by nomination. “I am prepared to undertake the solemn responsibility of filling the vacancy in New York’s 3rd District,” she claimed. "The people of Long Island deserve nothing less.”
The Erie County Democratic Committee has already endorsed State Sen. Tim Kennedy (D-63rd District), likely giving him frontrunner status for a seat that many local Democrats expressed interest in upon learning of Higgins’ announcement in November, and Kennedy promises to be a garden variety radical leftist.
"Every woman in America should have the same freedoms that women here in New York State, that's why we will codify Roe v. Wade into federal law,” Kennedy said last month. "Every worker should have the same right to organize and receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work; that's why we will pass the PRO Act and fully fund the National Labor Relations Board. Every child should feel safe in our school and parishioner safe in their houses of worship. That's why we will ban assault weapons and weapons of war. Every eligible American citizen should have the right to vote, that's why we will pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act."
Higgins won reelection in 2022 by 28 points, with 64% of the vote.
While the vacancy is only temporary, it does bode well for Republicans, who are currently in the process of an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden and an impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The expulsion of Santos made their already slim majority even tighter, and depending on the timetable for the impeachments of Biden and Mayorkas, Higgins' departure may make a successful impeachment vote easier in both cases.
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