Before the 2008 elections in Lower Saxony, candidate Wolfgang Jüttner included Högl in his shadow cabinet for the Social Democrats' – unsuccessful – campaign to unseat incumbent Minister-President Christian Wulff.
On the latter committee, she was her parliamentary group's rapporteur on the 2010 European Union directive on the rights to interpretation and to translation in criminal proceedings.
In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections, Högl was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on families, women and equality, led by Annette Widmann-Mauz and Manuela Schwesig.
From December 2013 until May 2020,[3] Högl served as deputy chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group under the leadership of successive chairpersons Thomas Oppermann (2013–2017), Andrea Nahles (2017–2019) and Rolf Mützenich (2019–2020).
[5] In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Högl was part of the working group on migration and integration, led by Volker Bouffier, Joachim Herrmann and Ralf Stegner.