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Tea Party Launches Offensive To Impeach Board Of Education Member

State of Texas

State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff, who is a Republican, has backed the use of online lesson plan provider CSCOPE from the beginning, but the groups making the push to impeach are not using that as their reason to oust him.

"They allege that because I represent Microsoft as a paid lobbyist at the Texas Legislature that that somehow disqualifies me or gives me a conflict of interest on the State Board of Education," Ratliff said.

Ratliff said the State Board of Education has never done any business with Microsoft. 

The allegations go on to say that Microsoft is benefiting from having access to CSCOPE, Ratliff explains that CSCOPE is accessible from a number of online tools not limited to Microsoft. He said this isn’t the first time these allegations have surfaced.

"This is something they’ve been talking about since I was first sworn into office in 2011," Ratliff said. "There have been a few people like this that have called for me to be impeached and they just never get any traction. And in fact in my last election, I got the most votes of any Republican or Democratic candidate for the State Board of Education both in the primary and general election."

Ratliff will publicly debate the CSCOPE issue against Republican lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick in Tyler, Texas, on Aug. 24.

Ryan started his radio career in 2002 working for Austin’s News Radio KLBJ-AM as a show producer for the station's organic gardening shows. This slowly evolved into a role as the morning show producer and later as the group’s executive producer.