I can’t help but hope this is the last column I’ll ever have to write about springing forward and falling back.
Since 1918, when Daylight Saving Time was first enacted to conserve energy resources, Americans have been wrestling with whether it’s better to have daylight in the morning or in the afternoon. Most of us understand that changing the time on our clocks doesn’t change the amount of light on any given day. Only the tilt of the earth toward or away from the sun does that. But because we change over to Daylight Saving Time in the spring, when days are naturally getting longer, some folks believe that DST actually creates more daylight.
It’s not for those people that I’m writing this column.
I’m writing for those of us fed up with having our circadian rhythms messed with twice a year. (And to the precious grandchild of mine who asked if circadian rhythms have anything to do with cicadas hatching out of their shells and singing, the answer is no. But it’s a real cute question.)
Millions upon millions of us are tired of being extra-tired twice a year. We don’t want to figure out what time we’re supposed to go to bed on the second Saturday in March and what time it actually is when we get up. We don’t want to figure out what time we’re supposed to go to bed on the first Saturday in November and what time it actually is when we get up. Though we know our computers and cell phones and smart watches will change to the correct time without our doing a thing, there are still stoves and microwaves and car clocks and wall clocks and old-timey alarm clocks and old-timey wrist watches to deal with.
And for those unlucky enough to be traveling across time zones on the weekends of the change-over, the headaches expand exponentially.
I had high hopes in 2022 when the Sunshine Protection Act, which would have made Daylight Saving Time standard with no toggling back and forth, passed on a unanimous vote in the United States Senate. But for some reason the bill never made it to the House of Representatives before the 117th Congress adjourned. The bill was reintroduced in the House in 2023 but never brought to a vote. Now it’s up to the new Congress to act or not act upon changing the clocks twice a year.
Here’s the thing. Members of Congress don’t seem to have much of substance to do these days. President Trump is busy making nonsensical appointments and issuing nonsensical executive orders and changing his mind more often than he changes his socks while Elon Musk runs roughshod over the U.S. Constitution. If and when Congress is called upon, the Republican majority in both houses simply rubber-stamps whatever their dear leader wants. Maybe the time is right to act upon a simple thing the American people have been imploring them to do for decades.
Pick a time and stick with it.
A recent poll shows that 46 percent of Americans prefer year-round Daylight Saving Time. Thirty-three percent favor year-round Standard Time. Only 21 percent want to continue switching back and forth.
So I say this to Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty and John Rose and all the rest: Decide whether you want school kids to get on the bus in the dark or off the bus in the dark. Decide whether golf is more fun in the morning or the afternoon. Decide whether a later sunset is really an advantage to law enforcement and retailers or not. Ask farmers what effect clock time has on their milk cows and laying hens. (And forget about the roosters. They crow whenever they feel like it and everybody who’s ever lived near one knows it.)
Decide. Then act. It’s the least you can do.
(March 15, 2025)