John R. Tomlin, who served five terms in the New Mexico House of Representatives in the 1960s and 70s, died Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Tomlin, a Democrat, passed away at MountainView Regional Medical Center. The lifelong farmer from Las Cruces\u2019 north valley was 80.<\/p>\n
The former legislator held for 10 years the House District 36 seat currently occupied by Andy Nu\u00f1ez. He was appointed in October 1965 to fill out the term of Mike Frietze, who resigned, and was later elected in 1969. He served through 1976.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a hell of a Democrat and a fine legislator who served Do\u00f1a Ana County well,\u201d said Ray Sadler, a longtime Democrat and former county party chair. \u201cHe was a major figure in New Mexico politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomlin was part of a legislative delegation Sadler said was the strongest Do\u00f1a Ana County has ever had. It included former Rep. Bill O\u2019Donnell, who chaired the House Appropriations Committee, and former Sen. Frank Papen, who chaired the Senate Finance Committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomlin was part of the group from the south that was the power in Santa Fe for more than a decade,\u201d Sadler said.<\/p>\n
Tomlin chaired the House Transportation Committee from 1973-76, and was vice-chair of the Natural Resources Committee from 1971-72.<\/p>\n
Sen. Mary Kay Papen of Las Cruces, who was married to the late Frank Papen, said her husband held Tomlin \u201cin the highest regard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought he was an unbelievable community servant,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of people who walk the great walk, and he was one of those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Funeral services are pending through Graham\u2019s Mortuary in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John R. Tomlin, who served five terms in the New Mexico House of Representatives in the 1960s and 70s, died Tuesday. Tomlin, a Democrat, passed away at MountainView Regional Medical Center. The lifelong farmer from Las Cruces\u2019 north valley was 80. The former legislator held for 10 years the House District 36 seat currently occupied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}