Former NM Sen. Carroll Leavell dies at 86

Carroll Leavell, who served in the New Mexico Senate for 21 years, died Monday at 86 after suffering from dementia, but colleagues and family members said his legacy as a fierce advocate for southeast New Mexico and conservative voice in Santa Fe lived on.

Leavell previously overcame prostate cancer during his time in the legislature, stepping down in 2018 from his seat representing District 41 which covered Eddy and Lea counties in southeast New Mexico.

He was born in Clovis in 1936, and died at an assisted living facility in Andrews, Texas.

More: New Mexico State Senator Carroll Leavell steps down from office

During his time in the legislature, lawmakers from the region remembered Leavell as a uniting voice of the two counties in New Mexico’s share of the Permian Basin where most of the state’s nation-leading oil and gas industry operates.

Former-Sen. Gregg Fulfer, Leavell’s son-in-law who was appointed by former-Gov. Susanna Martinez fill Leavell’s seat when he stepped down, said the long-time lawmaker was a mentor to him and close family member.

“I tried to follow in his shoes, but he had some big shoes to fill,” Fulfer said. “We’re really going to miss him. He was a legacy of himself and all he’s done. He did so many things you can’t really name everything."

More: Gregg Fulfer sworn into New Mexico Senate, replaces Leavell

Fulfer pointed to funding Leavell secured in the legislature for repairs on U.S. Highway 128, a heavily trafficked roadway in southeast New Mexico that was known for severe, sometimes fatal crashes.

“Because of things he’d done, we saved a lot of lives on that road,” Fulfer said.

In a Jul 10, 1998 article in the Albuquerque Tribune, Leavell was quoted as labeling 128 as the "poster child of bad roads in New Mexico in the story about funding for repairs on 12 miles of the highway.

"That highway needs to be repaved," Leavell said in the story. "We're trying to get it (the 12 miles) moved up."

Leavell was also instrumental in developing legislation to fund the remediation of the Carlsbad Brine Well, the former site of a brine water mine that was in danger of collapsing into a sinkhole in the city’s busy “South Y” junction of U.S. Highways 285 and 62/180.

More: Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announces remediation work of Carlsbad Brine Well complete

All told, southeast New Mexico lawmakers secured more than $30 million initially for the work in 2018 and created an authority to oversee the project via legislation cosponsored by Leavell.

The remediation was completed in May 2022, after the state spent about $80 million in total over subsequent years, preventing a sinkhole that was estimated to cause about $1 billion in damages and loss of life in Carlsbad’s busiest oil and gas thoroughfare.

“He was working behind the scenes making that happen,” Fulfer said. “He didn’t have to be the main person, but he was the one pretty much who coordinated getting all the money to do that.”

More: Lawmakers seek Gen. Fund dollars for Carlsbad Brine Well fix

He was also a strong advocate for bringing the URENCO National Enrichment Facility to Lea County, a means of diversifying the oil-dependent region’s economy to include nuclear, Fulfer said, while Leavell was also a supporter of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant nuclear waste repository near Carlsbad.

He served on the Legislature's Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee, which was instrumental in bringing WIPP to the state − the nation's only repository for transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste.

Known as an expert on insurance issues, Leavell was president of Leavell Insurance and Real Estate, where he worked for decades before seeking election to the Senate in 1996 and defeating Democrat Pat Darcy of Loving.

That helped him craft legislation to better New Mexico’s regulations, Fulfer said, on insurance and worker compensation.

Opinion: Adversaries join to solve a complex, dangerous problem

“He was a good leader wherever he went,” Fulfer said. “He was a very successful businessman and led a lot of the insurance legislation. He did a great job on that industry.”

A funeral was planned for Friday in Jal at the Jal Methodist Church.

'This is southeast New Mexico'

In remembrance of Leavell’s time in office, Sen. Gay Kernan (R-42) of Hobbs, who shared Eddy and Lea counties with Leavell in her district, said the two made several trips together around the region, frequently visiting Carlsbad and other southeast New Mexico towns.

Kernan on Wednesday announced she was stepping down from her seat, effective Aug. 1 following a tenure of 21 years after assuming the office in 2002.

From the Carlsbad Mayor: Carlsbad mourns former State Sen. Carroll Leavell

“Because we do represent more than our local community, your district becomes your community,” Kernan said. “He didn’t look at an issue as Eddy or Lea County, he said ‘This is southeast New Mexico.’ He modeled that.”

She said Leavell worked tirelessly across the aisle to maintain productive relationships with Democrats in the Senate, working on the powerful Senate Finance Committee for decades and representing the region’s key industries like oil and gas and nuclear.

An August 2005 story in the Carlsbad Current-Argus quoted Leavell as opposed to legislation that would have provided protections to landowners who own surface land rights above minerals sought by oil and gas companies.

Leavell also introduced a bill to remove the authority of county governments to regulate oil and gas drilling, according to a January 2009 article in the Rio Grande Sun.

"We started production in the '20s, and I will tell you there were serious abuses, going through the '50s," Leavell was quoted as saying in the 2005 story. "But that has changed dramatically today. It seems to me there are a lot of scars left in that area that a lot of current operators are being blamed for."

“He will be remembered as one of the great lawmakers representing this area,” Kernan said. “He treated everyone with respect, no matter your position. He stood for his values. The laws are better off because of him. I think that’s attributable to his knowledge of the area.”

More: Republicans use legislative session to rally voters

Rep. Jim Townsend (R-54) of Artesia said he worked with Leavell on issues pertaining to education, senior citizen, the military and agriculture.

“Regardless of the issue, he represented his district in total,” Townsend said. “He was definitely a conservative, definitely from southeast New Mexico. He loved our oil and gas industry, our agriculture community. That’s what he stood for.”

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a statement that Leavell said Leavell penchant for bipartisanship served his constituents well, and was a strong voice in the Legislature.

“Sen. Leavell was a staunch advocate for the communities of southeastern New Mexico, including Eddy and Lea counties," Lujan Grisham said. "Our state is a better place because of his 20-plus years of service in the Legislature and his willingness to work across the aisle to find solutions in the best interest of the people of New Mexico."

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Sen. Carroll Leavell remembered for uniting southeast New Mexico