Representative Rafael Anchia, a Democrat from Dallas, speaks against SB 7, at the Texas Capitol, on May 6, 2021. Eric Gay/AP Thirty minutes into debate in the House on Senate Bill 7, Dallas Democrat Rafael Anchia had Briscoe Cain, the Republican chairman of the Elections Committee, boxed in a rhetorical corner. Democrats were trying to show that the bill was nakedly partisan voter suppression meant to justify Donald Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Anchia had picked on a clause in Cain’s bill, “purity of the ballot box,” that originated in the Reconstruction era as a justification to keep Black Texans from voting. He had pressed the representative from Deer Park into bashfully admitting that he was ignorant of the history of the term—a small win at least on Twitter, where the exchange went viral.