Although his income was earned from oil and gas interests, Max W. Coll II's primary career was that of politician.

Always concerned about the environment and social justice issues, Coll introduced a bill requiring deposits on bottles and cans during his first term, and supported the country's Equal Rights Amendment, which wasn't ratified by New Mexico until 1972.

After he retired in 2004, Coll remained interested in politics, consulting with legislators who sought his advice, and even lecturing on techniques of successful lobbying at a workshop given by the League of Women Voters of New Mexico in 2007.

[14] However, after becoming the powerful chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, Coll chose to sponsor fewer bills of his own as a strategic move.

Coll felt that if he were to sponsor a great number of bills, his position of power might be weakened by the need to negotiate in a variety of directions.

The next year, due to inaccurate reporting by the Albuquerque Journal, this action got confused in the minds of some with a federal lawsuit brought by different plaintiffs seeking to declare casinos illegal in New Mexico.

This confusion resulted in the formation by Pojoaque Pueblo members of a political action committee called "K'ema" or Tewa for friend, the sole goal of which was to defeat Coll's re-election on the grounds that he was racist.

"[16] Despite K'ema's donation of $100,000 to his Republican opponent, Coll won his election and the Pojoaque Pueblo now operates a large casino outside Santa Fe.

Another time, Coll and Republican colleague Jerry Lee Alwin, R-Albuquerque, sued the state over a bond-issue designed to fund prisons in 1997.

In a battle with then-Governor Gary Johnson over a plan to place the state's Medicaid program in the hands of managed healthcare, Coll's objections included the death of his daughter.

Coll told the Legislative Finance Committee in 1996 that his daughter's symptoms would have been noticed and addressed had she been allowed by her managed care to see the same doctor at each visit.

Accusing these systems of caring only for profits and not for patients, Coll added, "They basically get around [costs] by not doing tests that people need.

New Mexican by birth, Coll began his career in Roswell wearing a crewcut that had become an unruly mop of grey by the time he returned to politics in Santa Fe.

After his return to New Mexico's House in the 1980s, he was usually seen wearing a stud earring in each ear, a turquoise watchband, and a brightly-colored vest on the Capitol Floor.

Among his colleagues, Coll gained a reputation for drawing caricatures depicting his viewpoint of their bills, arguments or behavior during legislative sessions and committee meetings.

"[23] In later years, Coll remembered his 1993 attempt to pass single-payer healthcare by saying, "the insurance industry really came out of the woodwork and stomped on it like a June bug.

"[24] In 2000 when the state's Human Services Department "found" some funds where earlier they had reported a deficit, Coll compared the action to "a blind pig's stumbling across an acorn.

"[25] During 2002 budget hearings, Coll hung a sign in front of his dias that read, "What part of 'There is no money' do you not understand?

Of Coll, Massey also said, "He lived as he rowed...He saw where the currents of life and politics wanted to pull and push him, and he figured out a way to make it better.

New Mexico's sixth governor, Democrat James Fielding Hinkle, moved to the southwest from Missouri where he managed the Penasco Valley's CA Bar Ranch in the 1890s.

He was remembered with a well-attended Memorial Service in the Rotunda of the New Mexico State Capitol with speeches by friends and colleagues and the haunting strains of bagpipes.

Sponsored by Coll's longtime colleague Representative Luciano "Lucky" Varela, the memorial was passed with a unanimous vote.