BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The curtain is about to close on Rep. Brian Higgins’ time representing Western New York in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The congressman who has served Buffalo, Niagara Falls and other WNY areas for nearly two decades will step aside after Friday to take the reigns as president and CEO of Shea’s Performing Arts Center.
Higgins said he went to Congress not to change the world but to change his community, and he feels he’s helped improve Buffalo’s prospects both physically — he cited the city’s revamped waterfront and recent population gains downtown — and psychologically.
“I think Buffalo had an inferiority complex,” Higgins said in an interview with News 4’s Dave Greber and Jordan Norkus. “It believed that its fate as a community was determined by external forces over which it had no control. Wide right, no goal. And I think Buffalo learned to stand up for itself.”
Higgins’ legislative impact extended past Buffalo’s city limits. After Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence Center, killing 49 passengers and another on the ground, stricter safety rules Higgins and the victims’ families pushed for have ushered in what he called the “safest period in aviation history, in the history of the world.”
Higgins deflected credit to the victims’ families.
“The families made that happen,” Higgins said. “They were all together and the sense of empathy, the sense of purpose — they have made tens of millions of people safer [in] the flying public because of their sacrifice.”
Higgins said stepping down from Congress was a difficult decision, but deepening divisions along party lines have made solving issues harder.
“Spending much more time in Washington and accomplishing so much less than what Congress has the capability of doing, and it’s come to a point where issues are weaponized,” Higgins said. “Look at the immigration issue, for example. 30 years ago, it was an issue to be resolved by both Democrats and Republicans. Now it’s an issue to exploit, and the American people are no better off.”
Higgins said his time in Congress and experience with fundraising will serve him well as he takes over the “iconic cultural institution” at Shea’s.
“Over a hundred years ago, all the great artists — Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, Richard Upjohn, Louis Sullivan, Louise Bethune, the first female [professional] architect in the United States — none of them were from Buffalo,” Higgins said. “They came to Buffalo because we were a city that exuded a confidence to say to these creative people, ‘You can get your vision turned into something real.’ And now we have this beautiful theatre, the Shea’s Buffalo, with a great staff, a great board of directors, and we are going to try to take it to a new level.”
Higgins — who as president of a nonprofit, is unable to give political endorsements after Friday — also lent a nod of support to Sen. Tim Kennedy, who earned the Erie County Democratic Committee’s official nomination for Higgins’ seat in New York’s 26th district last month.
“Tim is an outstanding public servant who comes from a beautiful family and has great values and is a guy that’s been with me for a long, long time. He’s very capable and I’m sure he’ll do a great job,” Higgins said. “I’m hopeful that he will be my successor and I’m confident that he will.”
Justin McMullen is a Western New York native who joined the News 4 team in 2023. You can read more of his work here.
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