I noticed the total number of seats was adjusted, with one session having 79 seats (1965-66), but reducing it to 70 seats, where it has remained since. That wipeout from 28 seats to 4 (!) in 1954 was pretty unbelievable, but they had just 9 seats going into the 1952 elections, so unquestionably these were almost all the freshmen members sent packing (along with a few more). The Dems got the Governorship back that year with 37 year old John F. Simms, Jr. (who served a term as House Speaker, elected at just 32).
Ex-Gov. Mechem came back in ‘56 and took the office from Simms (who almost lost renomination as it was). Apparently that year the number of House members was increased from 55 to 66 (and the GOP took 19 seats again, as they had in 1952, but 23 seats was only good for 1/3rd of the body). Only on three occasions did the House GOP max out at 29 seats (good for 41%), from 1979-82 and once in 1999. It’s why the Dems started to panic in the last two sessions seeing their numbers get so low that a few DINOs were at risk for making common cause with the GOP to toss leadership.
As for the Senate, though it isn’t shown here, in the 1985-86 session, there was a split and the Republicans got a party-switcher named Les Houston into the President Pro Tempore position (though he was deposed by the Democrat he defeated for the job, though 2 years after that, a Dem named Manny Aragon managed to persuade the GOP members and a few dissident Dems to elect him, where he served until 2001 before shifting to the Majority Leader position). Otherwise, the Senate has been Democrat since 1933.
Although the Senate Dems have a 25-to-17 majority, 8 of those seats have incumbents that won by narrow margins and add to that likely a few Dems that would probably be Republicans were they serving in another state. At present, it’s generally considered to be a “center-right” majority coalition. Gov. Martinez should have an easier time of it in the next 2 years (and the Dems will definitely attempt to pull a “1954” in 2016, especially since there are no Republicans with institutional knowledge of running a majority, which is a bad thing).
I didn’t know there were still “conservative” democrats in New Mexico. The time to switch is now, boys.