From Texas Politics:
Some State Board of Education members reacted angrily Wednesday after board Chairman Don McLeroy ignored seniority in appointing committees.
"This is a real slap on the face," said Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, who has been on the board since the mid 1980s.
Berlanga landed on the school initiatives committee instead of getting either of her two preferences - instruction or the school finance/Permanent School Fund committee.
"I'm not sure that I should even come to the meetings," Berlanga said. "I am very disappointed. You are doing an injustice to the people we serve and an injustice to the children. You might as well put me on the basket-weaving committee because that's what you have done."
Patricia Hardy, R-Fort Worth, complained that at least four board members did not get any of their first two choices in committee appointments.
The process lacked integrity, she told McLeroy: "You have made a mockery of this whole thing."
State Board of Education members fight and feud over most major matters that come before them.
McLeroy did not try to justify the committee appointments.
Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, R-Dallas, another long-time board member chastised McLeroy for ignoring seniority rules in appointing the committees.
Miller said she was "very disappointed" in what she described as "in-the-face democracy."
