Skip Carnine

Leslie Verl Carnine, known as Skip Carnine (born 1941), is a retired educator from Rogers in Benton County in northwesternArkansas, who is a term-limited Republican former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. District 90, which he had last represented from 2013 to 2015, includes part of Benton County. From 2009 to 2013, he represented District 94.

Carnine graduated from Storm Lake High School, and he earned a bachelor's degree from Buena Vista University, both in Storm Lake in Buena Vista County in northwesternIowa. He procured a master's degree from Central Missouri State University, now the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri, and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

He is a former "Arkansas Superintendent of the Year" and a former trustee of the Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville. He is affiliated with Rotary International. He and his wife, Linda Jo Carnine (born 1944), attend the Presbyterian Church. The couple has two grown children and as of 2013 six grandchildren.

In 2008, Carnine won without opposition the District 94 House seat vacated by Republican Eric Harris. In 2010, he was again unopposed in District 94. In 2012, Carnine, again unopposed, was switched to District 90 for his third and final term in the state House. Incumbent Republican Representative David Branscum was transferred to District 83.

In his last legislative term, Carnine served on the Joint Budget and the House Education and Insurance & Commerce committees.

Representative Carnine in 2013 co-sponsored the proposed spending cap on the state budget, but the bill failed by a two-vote margin in the House.He voted to override the vetoes of Democratic Governor Mike Beebe to enact legislation to require photo identification for casting a ballot in Arkansas and to ban abortion after twenty weeks of gestation. He also supported legislation to ban abortion whenever fetal heartbeat is detected, to forbid the inclusion of abortion in the state insurance exchange, and to make the death of a fetus a felony in certain cases. He did not vote on to allow leaders of universities to carry concealed weapons of firearms on campus, but he co-sponsored a similar measure to permit officials of religious institutions to allow the carrying of concealed weapons in places of worship. He voted against reducing the application fee for obtaining a concealed carry permit. Carnine voted to prohibit the governor from regulating firearms during an emergency. He voted to permit the closing of schools based on a two-year pupil enrollment analysis. He voted against legislation to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. Carnine did not vote on the bill, signed by Governor Beebe, to permit the sale of up to five hundred gallons per month of unpasteurized whole milk directly from the farm to consumers.

In 2011, Carnine did not vote on a measure to allow religious instruction in schools but supported a measure authorizing school dress codes. He voted to restrict driver's license tests to be given in the English language. He voted for the Capital Gains Reduction Act and for the reduction of taxes on manufacturers' utilities. He voted first to prohibit cell phone usage in school zones but reversed himself a day later on the measure. He voted for the congressional redistricting act.

In 2009, Carnine voted to allow unlicensed medical assistants to perform minor procedures. He co-sponsored the expansion of children's eligibility in the state health insurance program. He voted against a plan to base the electoral vote on a system of direct election of the U.S. President.

In the Republican primary held on May 20, 2014, Jana Della Rosa, with 1,194 votes (52 percent), defeated two intra-party rivals, Paul Caldwell, with 816 votes (368 percent), and Mike Whitmore, with the remaining 274 votes (12 percent), to win the party's nomination to succeed Carnine.