Ms. Perales questioned Mr. Cain’s professed unfamiliarity with the poisonous racial historical past of the “purity of the poll field” phrase. She f
Ms. Perales questioned Mr. Cain’s professed unfamiliarity with the poisonous racial historical past of the “purity of the poll field” phrase. She famous that at the least two outstanding civil rights organizations had submitted written testimony to Mr. Cain’s committee condemning the phrase.
(In testimony emailed to the committee in late March, the NAACP Authorized Protection and Instructional Fund mentioned the phrase “has deep ties to calls by white legislators within the state to make sure the ‘purity of the Anglo-Saxon race’ by, amongst different ways, disenfranchising Black Texans.”
However Ms. Beckley mentioned she too was unaware of the roots of the language. The day after the Home debate, she recalled, Mr. Cain got here to her desk and requested, “Do you know about this?”
“I’m not going to lie,” she mentioned in an interview, “I didn’t know that historical past.”
In 2019, Mr. Cain revealed that he has Asperger’s syndrome throughout a speech on the Home ground throughout Autism Consciousness Month. He additionally injected a humorous be aware: “I think lots of you’re considering to your self, in order that explains it. And sure, your assumptions are right — that’s why I’m extremely smart.”
He lives along with his spouse and 5 youngsters in Deer Park, the place he grew up, and serves as a captain within the Texas State Guard.
Mr. Cain’s four-year tenure within the Legislature has been considerably of a curler coaster, at the least by exterior observations. As a freshmen legislator in 2017, Mr. Cain was put on the prime of Texas Month-to-month’s “worst legislators” record, which referred to as him “uninformed and belligerent.”
The article cited an occasion when Mr. Cain debated a member of his personal celebration, Consultant John Zerwas, who’s a health care provider, over funding a state council that promotes palliative care. Mr. Cain repeatedly referred to the apply as a “demise panel,” although when pressed by Mr. Zerwas, he was unable to additional clarify the apply. Ultimately he conceded, “I acknowledge that you realize about this and my apologies.”