One-term ’80s Wisconsin gov who lost after being labeled ‘Tony the Taxer’
MADISON, Wis. — Tony Earl, a Democrat who served one term as Wisconsin’s governor in the 1980s and later bemoaned the increasing partisanship in politics, has died. He was 86.
Mr. Earl, a champion of gay rights and a staunch environmentalist, died Thursday “peacefully surrounded by family,” according to his daughter Julia Earl, who said he had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke earlier in the week.
“A formidable leader and public servant, trusted colleague and mentor and a good and loyal friend, Tony was well-liked and respected by so many,” Gov. Tony Evers said of him.
Mr. Earl served only one term as governor, from 1983 to 1987, before being beaten by Republican Tommy Thompson, who labeled him as “Tony the Taxer” because of tax hikes he signed in the opening months of his term. Despite their rivalry, the two men were friends for decades.
“We both ran for governor in 1986, but we didn’t run against each other,” Thompson said. “We often joked that I thought he should have been a Republican, and he was sure I should have been a Democrat. What we both were was Wisconsinites, first and foremost.”
Mr. Earl’s political career ended after he lost a Democratic primary race for the U.S. Senate in 1988 to Herb Kohl. But he went on to be a leading advocate for campaign and election finance reforms and a champion of environmental causes.
“He never lost his ability to be good and nice and was never pompous,” said Jay Heck, head of the lobbying group Common Cause Wisconsin and a longtime friend of the former governor. “That may have been one of his political failings. He was never mean enough to go after people others thought he should go after . ... He was beloved by most Democrats and got along very well with Republicans.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said that, as a high school student, he was a campaign volunteer for Mr. Earl’s first campaign for governor.
“From the first day I met him, he was always the most gracious person, with the goal of cultivating a Democratic bench for the future,” Pocan said.
The sour economy proved tough for Mr. Earl to overcome during his time as governor. The unemployment rate was 12% when he took office. And the $1 billion budget deficit led him to push a tax increase through — a move that hung over his tenure and fueled his defeat in 1986 by Thompson.
Mr. Earl attempted a comeback two years after losing reelection, running as a progressive Democrat for the U.S. Senate. One of his campaign slogans was, “What this nation needs is more Peace Corps and less Star Wars,” referring to the Republican-backed missile defense system proposed at the time.
But his campaign was cut off at the knees when Kohl, fresh from buying the Milwaukee Bucks, joined the race in its late stages and poured more than $7 million of his own money into winning the Democratic primary and eventually the general election.
Mr. Earl never ran for office again.
He worked as a lawyer in Madison and became an outspoken advocate for government reforms. In 1996, he reorganized Common Cause of Wisconsin, a group that argues for campaign finance and election reforms. He also later was a board member of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago charitable organization.
“Somebody told me, when I was elected, ‘You’re about to embark on a mountaintop experience,’ ” he said in an August 2013 interview. “And it really was in many, many ways.”
He said he thought his legacy would be his advocacy for gay rights. By executive order, he established a process for gay people to file discrimination complaints, created a Governor’s Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues and appointed an openly gay man as his press secretary.
Mr. Earl also appointed the state’s first female Department of Administration secretary and first Black Cabinet member.
“Now, the kinds of things I was doing are absolutely taken as a given,” he said in the 2013 interview.
Mr. Earl was born and raised in Michigan. He graduated from Michigan State University and received his law degree from the University of Chicago law school in 1961. He practiced law in the Navy from 1961 to 1965 and was appointed an assistant district attorney in Marathon County in 1965.
His run for governor was seen as a long shot, given that he was poised to face popular Republican incumbent Gov. Lee Dreyfus. But Dreyfus decided against seeking reelection after Mr. Earl began his campaign, clearing his path to a 15-percentage-point victory over Republican Terry Kohler.