Earl's liberal critics

A month before the gubernatorial election, Katherine Esposito reports on widespread liberal dissatisfaction with Gov. Tony Earl's environmental record. The first- term Democrat is locked in a tight race with Republican Tommy Thompson, but that doesn't stop his nominal supporters from ripping Earl for working too closely with the business community. "The governor has got to have some guts," says Susan Mudd of Citizens For a Better Environment. "Beyond accountability" is how Public Intervenor Kathleen Falk describes Earl's highway funding: "Every other state program gets cut while we spend more on new highways instead of maintaining our existing highways." Peter Anderson of the Environmental Decades fumes that that Earl "has bent over backwards to placate big business" and describes his environmental record as "uniformly bleak." Earl's liberal critics prove successful in tarnishing his record, and Thompson upsets Earl to begin a 16-year run of Republican rule of the governor's office.