Senate resists Trump push for permanent daylight saving time

Congress repealed 1973 year-round daylight time within months

The Senate is unlikely to act before the end of the year on a House-passed bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, several Republican senators said, defying President Donald Trump’s push for the change. As daylight saving time ends early Sunday and much of the country turns the clocks back an hour, senators including Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton and South Dakota Republican Mike Rounds are holding up the legislation.

Supporters argue that ending the twice-yearly time change would provide more daylight during the afternoon, when Americans are most active. Opponents say commuters in some states would not see the sun until after 9 a.m.

“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton said.

Cotton, a member of GOP leadership, is the most vocal opponent of the change, drawing Trump’s ire earlier this month when the president posted the Arkansas senator’s personal cellphone number on social media and ordered him to “GET IT DONE!” Several other Republicans, particularly those from some Northern states that would see much later sunrises, also say they oppose the legislation.

“You’d be sending kids to school in the dark,” Rounds said.

Trump has aggressively pushed the change, putting pressure on Senate Republicans to pass the House bill and send it to his desk. In posts targeting Cotton earlier this month, Trump wrote that sunshine is better in the afternoon than the morning and that “CRIMINALS DON’T LIKE WORKING IN THE LIGHT.” He renewed his call this week, writing on Truth Social that “United States Senate is letting the Daylight Saving Bill die, when a vast Majority of the Country want it.”

An avid golfer, Trump has made clear that adding daylight hours would mean more time to hit the links. He has argued that changing the time can be dangerous, especially “when you have high and dangerous steeples to reach, like on churches and municipal buildings.” Even as many Americans now rely on digital clocks that change on their own, Trump said that “nobody wants to spend their precious time running all over the place, turning Clocks back twice a year.”

The president’s arguments do not appear to have changed many votes in the Senate. Cotton has doubled down in response to the pressure, and several Republicans predicted in recent weeks that the bill will not come up for a vote in the short time left when the Senate returns to Washington after the Nov. 3 midterm election.

Indiana Sen. Todd Young said it is his understanding that the House bill is a “non-starter” for Senate Republican leaders. Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno was even more blunt when asked this month if he thinks the bill will pass the Senate anytime soon. “No way,” Moreno said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota has not weighed in publicly on the House bill, but he has voted against similar versions in the past.

In the winter of 1973, amid an energy crisis, Congress passed a law instituting permanent daylight saving time for what was supposed to be a trial period. Congress repealed it by that October as public support dropped sharply, partly because of concern for children who were walking to school in the dark.

More than 50 years later, fewer Americans recall that experiment. Like Trump, many want to ditch the twice-yearly time change and add more daylight hours later in the day. An AP-NORC poll last year found that only 12% of American adults were in favor of the current system, while almost half opposed it. Proponents of a single time include the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott signed legislation when he was governor in 2018 that would allow the state to remain on daylight saving time year-round, pending federal approval. Now in the Senate, the Republican has led efforts to make that happen. “I hear from Americans constantly that they are sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year — it’s an unnecessary, decades-old practice that’s more of an annoyance to families than benefit to them,” Scott said.

Several Democrats are on board as well. “The head-spinning ritual of falling back and springing forward has a very real impact on our economy, our health, and our happiness,” Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts said last year when Scott introduced his own bill. “Let’s say goodbye to 4pm winter sunsets.”