He was member of the Western Interstate Nuclear Board from 1971 to 1972. In the Assembly, he chaired the Agriculture and the Atomic Development Committees; and while in the Senate chaired the Governmental Efficiency and Governmental Investigations and Reports Committees. Briggs was a leader in several legislative initiatives in California, including:  Briggs sponsored the 1978 initiative known as Proposition 6 or the Briggs Initiative that would have prevented gays or those who supported gay rights from working in public schools. Of gay teachers, he said, "Most of them are in the closet, and frankly, that's where I think they should remain." Former California governor Ronald Reagan spoke out publicly against the Briggs Initiative, stating that "there are enough laws that protect children". In a November 1, 1978, editorial in the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner", Reagan wrote, "Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this." California Governor Jerry Brown denounced Proposition 6, as did U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The Log Cabin Republicans, a national organization of gay Republicans, subsequently credited Proposition 6 as being the catalyst leading to its formation. Opposition by leading politicians combined with grassroots lobbying led to the defeat of Proposition 6 by 58.4% to 41.6%. Following his retirement from politics, Briggs operated a successful political and business consulting firm for fifteen years. He was a registered California lobbyist from 1983 to 1996. In 2000, he moved to the Lake Tahoe area where he became a successful real estate investor. Briggs and his wife moved to Sun City Anthem in 2003, an age-restricted community in Nevada where he has run for the community's board of directors. In a campaign statement in 2008 published on the resident created blog, "The Anthem Voice", Briggs denied statements made about him in various blogs, and said that he was not an "intolerant person." He stated that he continued to regard singer Anita Bryant (a vocal opponent of gay rights measures in the late 1970s) as "a hero," but he also said that, "with the passage of over thirty years, America has changed — including me." He said that, when he worked with Bryant, he and his wife "not only stood for our principles, but fought for principles as we then saw them." But he also said that the 1970s and 1980s were "a much different America," in which "President Reagan and the country shamefully neglected the AIDS epidemic causing the deaths of thousands."