This study examines the history of the New Mexico State Supreme Court and its role within the political process. As a political account, it focuses on the election and appointment of judges on a partisan basis, judicial personnel and their partisan activities, attempts to manipulate the judiciary for political purposes, political controversies litigated and subsequently resolved by the court, and the legal community and its influence on the state\u27s judicial development. As a history, it proceeds chronologically, beginning with an exposition of the territorial precedent and of the establishment of the judiciary under the state constitution. The manuscript then recounts how the state bench and its justices responded in the years that followed to political realities current within the state. Considered separately are the primarily bar-initiated efforts to reform the partisan election method of judicial selection
