Mark Biviano

Mark Lancing Biviano (born 1960),^[1] is a real estate businessman from Searcy in White County in central Arkansas, who is a Republican former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. His District 46, which he has represented from 2013 to 2015, includes part of White County. From 2011 to 2013, he represented House District 50.^[2]

He did not seek a third term in 2014 and was succeeded by his fellow Republican Les Eaves, also of Searcy.

Background

A native of Blytheville in Mississippi County in eastern Arkansas, Biviano graduated from high school in the U.S. state of Ohio.^[2] He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.^[3]Biviano and his wife, Barbara Ellen Biviano, have three children, Joshua Mark (born 1983), Sarah, and Zach Biviano.^[3]

Political life

In 2010, Biviano was elected in House District 50, having narrowly unseated the incumbent Democrat Monty Betts, 4,350 (50.6 percent) to 4,242 (49.4 percent).^[4]In 2012, District 50 was reconfigured to include Crittenden and Cross counties. Biviano won his second term in revised District 46 by defeating the Democrat Kyle Osborne, 6,305 (60.8 percent) to 4,073 (39.2 percent).^[5]

Biviano serves as the vice chair of the Advanced Communications and Information Technology Committee and serves as well on these panels: (1) Budget, (2) Education, and (3) Insurance and Commerce.^[3]

Representative Biviano in 2013 in District 46 supported a spending cap on the state budget. 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, a measure which Biviano co-sponsored. He further supported related pro-life 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 an unborn child a felony in certain cases. He voted to empower university officials to carry weapons for campus safety. He opposed legislation to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. He supported 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.^[6]

In 2011, Biviano in District 50 co-sponsored legislation to permit weapons in religious institutions. He supported a dress code for public schools. He backed curriculum standards for biblical instruction in public schools. He voted for the Capital Gains Reduction Act. He voted to permit driver's license tests only in the English language. Biviano voted against legislation to prohibit cell phone use in school zones.^[6]

Biviano did not seek a third term in the House in 2014. In the Republican primary, Les Eaves, with 2,158 votes (63 percent), defeated Kyle Reeves, who polled 1,260 votes (37 percent), to obtain the Republican nomination to succeed Biviano.^[7]

References