Rafael Anchia

In the general election on November 6, 2018, Anchia won his eighth term in the House by handily defeating the Republican candidate, Jerry Fortenberry, 29,661 votes (78.2 percent) to 8,268 (21.8 percent).

Anchia currently sits on the board of the interest group, Education Is Freedom. He is a member of the governing board of the SMU Clements Center for Southwest Studies. He is also a member of the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee and is a superdelegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Anchia helped lead an effort to ensure that teachers received two 4 percent consecutive pay increases without raising taxes. The board was also committed to reduce waste and to create a more efficient school district. More than a hundred administrative positions ended. This decision helped to guarantee the salary increases promised to DISD teachers. Starting salaries were the highest in the DFW metroplex. The following year marked the first academic school year in two decades where the school district began with no teacher vacancies—a number that had reached two thousand at the beginning of Anchia's term.

Anchia was elected to the Texas House in 2004 and sworn into the freshman class of the 79th Texas Legislature on January 11, 2005. As of 2015, he was 35th in seniority out of the 150 members of the Texas House. He won reelection in the general election held on November 8, 2016.

Anchia was elected to the Texas House on November 2, 2004 and sworn into office on January 11, 2005. He is the chairman of the International Trade & Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. He also sits on the Energy Resources Committee.

In 2001, at the age of thirty-two, Anchia was elected as the District 7 trustee of the Dallas Independent School District, then the nation's 12th largest school district. During his tenure on the school board, Anchia served as first vice president and chaired the Policy and Governance Committee. As a trustee, he helped lead the successful effort of the Dallas ISD to win public approval of a $1.37 billion school bond package.

Anchia lived in Miami as a child, where he attended and graduated from Miami Coral Park Senior High School in 1986. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, at which he triple majored in Spanish, Latin American studies, and Anthropology and graduated with Honors. Anchia continued his studies and earned his law degree from Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Rafael Michael Anchía (born September 26, 1968) has been since 2005 a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives for the Dallas-based 103rd District. He had previously served on the board of the Dallas Independent School District. The district is fully encompassed within Dallas County, Texas, and includes North Oak Cliff, Oak Lawn, portions of West Dallas, the Medical District, Love Field Airport, North and Arlington Parks, Irving, and Farmers Branch.

Anchia's mother was the daughter of a well-known engraver, Justino Michelena; he was an engraver of handguns and rifles, which led to a job offer from Colt's Manufacturing Company, an American firearms manufacturer. At the age of fifteen years old, she migrated with her family to the United States. She graduated from Miami High School. Julio and Edurne met in Miami, and after a long courtship, the couple married in 1967. Representative Anchia was born the following year, 1968.

Anchia's grandfather, Claudio, was a sheep and goat herder in the province of Viscaya, Spain. In the early 1900s, he traveled to Idaho, as did legions of other Basques, to herd sheep. Despite not being a citizen of the United States, Claudio signed up to fight for the United States in World War I.