It appears that, on reflection, the Wyoming House of Representatives has decided the risk of invasion by its neighbors is remote enough that it can do without its own armed forces for now, and in particular does not need to consider whether an aircraft carrier might come in handy. I was informed, I think by Rep. Brown himself, that the bill was “defeated on third reading and exists no more.”

Sadly, that is indeed the case. Turns out this bill had a very short lifespan, having been introduced just a couple of weeks ago. It did pass an initial vote (43-17), although that may be pretty common. But trouble appeared on the 24th, when the amount appropriated was cut in half. The armed-forces amendment was adopted just yesterday (Feb. 27), but appears to have been deleted by a later amendment, either later in the day or this morning. Even without the aircraft-carrier language, though, the bill itself failed today on the third reading, though only by three votes (27-30), with three abstaining (or “excused”) from the vote.

Note that I do check these things out; if I was off on this one, it was only by a few hours (and even if I was, it was still worth reporting).

Rep. Brown was not a sponsor of the bill, although he does seem to have voted for it on the first reading; he later offered the aircraft-carrier amendment, and then voted against the whole thing today. So, although he hasn’t confirmed it yet, it does look like he may be one of those relatively rare legislators with both a sense of humor and the will to express it in a piece of legislation (which he knew would be deleted). It’s nice to be able to get humor out of a legislature this way for once.