Michele Bachmann: Ready to Rumble

Almost two decades ago, Michele Bachmann, now a third-term Republican representative and founder of the congressional Tea Party Caucus, was a board member at a new public charter school in suburban Minnesota. Soon after the first school year began, unusual reports trickled home to parents. Denise Stephens, whose daughter attended the school at the time, says a teacher banned the Disney movie because it depicted magic. Native American dreamweavers were considered inappropriate for an art project. And rumors spread that the board wanted to mandate religious instruction in the classroom.

The school district launched an investigation. At a packed public meeting in December 1993, three months after the school opened, Bachmann and the other board members resigned.