More sunshine? Cawthorn, other NC lawmakers push for permanent time change
Some North Carolina lawmakers never want to change their clocks again.
Several state lawmakers and at least one member of Congress from the state have introduced legislation to make daylight saving time permanent.
“No more pointless clock adjustments,” U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican, tweeted Sunday. Cawthorn introduced his bill last week.
Most of the United States started daylight saving time on Sunday morning. It lasts through Nov. 7 this year.
In North Carolina, state Rep. Jason Saine introduced a bill Monday to make daylight saving time permanent in the state.
A similar bill from Saine in 2019 passed the House but died in the Senate. However, this year, Senate Republicans have already filed an identical version of the bill, led by Sen. Vickie Sawyer of Mooresville.
Even if the bill passes into law, however, it would only go into effect if Congress passed a law of its own allowing states to do this. States are currently allowed to opt out of Daylight Savings Time, but they aren’t allowed to make it permanent.
Since 2018 at least 15 states have passed legislation or a resolution calling for year-round daylight saving time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, is leading an effort to make it permanent, introducing the Sunshine Protection Act with several other senators. Florida voted in 2018 to make daylight saving time permanent.
Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, who is running for the nomination in Cawthorn’s far-western North Carolina district, tweeted her support for ending the twice-yearly time change.
“With three kids and two working parents, mornings are chaotic enough on a normal day,” she tweeted Monday. “Add daylight saving time and the result is utter chaos. Seems like an opportunity for bipartisan agreement that this isn’t working for anyone any more.”
Former President Donald Trump, in 2019, said he was “O.K.” with making daylight saving time permanent.
Scientific studies have shown the time changes — ”spring forward, fall back,” as many remember them — are associated with an increase in workplace injuries and fatal car crashes in the days immediately after the time change.
A review of 24 studies of the transitions around daylight saving time — the weeks after the clocks change — concluded it “cannot support or refute the assertion that a permanent shift in light from morning to evening will have a road safety benefit.”
The Uniform Time Act, passed in 1966, standardized daylight saving time for six months each year. The United States had a patchwork of daylight saving time policy in the years before that. Daylight saving time has been extended twice since, now spanning eight months.
But history suggests such a change — while seemingly popular now — may not remain popular. In January 1974, the country made daylight saving time permanent for a trial period after an overwhelming vote in the U.S. House.
The trial ended early as popular opinion collapsed with parents sending children to school and heading to work in colder, darker mornings in the winter, The Washington Post reported.
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This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 5:26 PM.
