Walter K. Martinez
American politician and lawyer
Walter Kenneth Martinez, Sr. (November 16, 1930 – May 11, 1986) was an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives. A liberal member of the Democratic Party, he served as speaker of the House for eight years. before being removed from the position in 1979, when conservative Democrats allied with Republicans to elect a conservative Democrat as speaker.
Early life and education
Martinez was born in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, one of eleven children in poor but well-educated family. He studied law at the University of New Mexico and graduated in 1955. He became a general legal practitioner with the firm of Tibo Chavez and Boucher and established an office in Grants, New Mexico.
Career
In 1966, Martinez was elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives as a Democrat representing Valencia County, New Mexico. He served in the House for eighteen years. Until 1971, the House had been dominated by conservative Democrats, mostly from the south and east of New Mexico.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walter K. Martinez” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.