Karilyn Brown


Karilyn Mae Boggan Peterson Brown, is a technical writer from Sherwood, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 41 in a portion of Pulaski County outside the capital city of Little Rock.
Brown was elected to her third legislative term in the general election held on November 6, 2018. With 6,337 votes, she defeated Democrat Jonathan Crossley, who polled 5,418 votes.

Background

Brown is a native of Cape Girardeau in southeastern Missouri. At the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, she majored in technical writing and received both Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees. She is a member of the Lutheran Church. She is married to Lawrence Brown and has a son, William C. Peterson, from a previous marriage. One of her avocations is gardening.

Political life

A former justice of the peace for District 12 in Pulaski County, Brown in 2014 won the District 41 House seat vacated by the term-limited Democrat Jim Nickels, an attorney from Sherwood. Brown vowed if elected to take her "conservative approach to the state capitol."
In the May 20 Republican primary, Brown defeated her intra-party rival, Alan Lewis Pogue, also of Sherwood, 1,285 votes to 931. In 2012, Pogue had narrowly lost, with 6,192 votes, the general election as the Republican nominee against Jim Nickels, who polled 6,700 votes.
In the general election held on November 4, 2014, a heavily Republican year in Arkansas, Brown defeated the Democratic nominee, Danny D. Knight, also from Sherwood, 6,100 votes to 4,645.
Brown is assigned to these House committees: Public Transportation, Aging, Children & Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs, and Insurance and Commerce.
In February 2015, Brown joined dozens of her fellow Republicans and two Democrats in co-sponsoring legislation submitted by Representative Lane Jean of Magnolia, to reduce unemployment compensation benefits. The measure was promptly signed into law by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson.
That same month, Brown was co-sponsor of House Bill 1228, authored by Republican Bob Ballinger of Carroll County in northwestern Arkansas. The measure sought to prohibit government from imposing a burden on the free exercise of religion. Brown's colleague, Representative Camille Bennett, a Democrat from Lonoke, called for a reworking of the legislation on the theory that the bill would establish a "type of religious litmus test" which could impact nearly any law under consideration by the legislature. The legislation was subsequently passed by a large margin in the House and signed into law in revised form, SB 975, by Governor Hutchinson.