House Failed to Hold Vote on Making Daylight Savings Time Permanent

Sep 22, 2023

Congress came closer than ever this year to moving the country towards permanent daylight savings time, ending the biannual ritual of adjusting clocks and bringing more sunlight to winter afternoons.

So close, yet so far: after the Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act by unanimous consent in March, it was up to the House to hold a vote on the bill. It never did.

"It's polarizing as hell," Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a key sponsor of the bill, told Insider at the Capitol in December. "It's the dangest thing, you know? It knows no partisan boundaries, but people get really emotional about it, both ways."

The Sunshine Protection Act, sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators that includes eight Democrats and 10 Republicans, would have made daylight savings time — the time configuration that the US switches to in the warmer months of the year — permanent year-round across the country, unless states specifically opt out of it.

While the bill has drawn support from conservatives, liberals, and moderates alike, it has also faced opposition, including from those who believe that opting for darker mornings in the winter could pose a safety issue, including for children waiting for school buses.

In fact, the bill's passage in the Senate was something of an accident, according to a report from BuzzFeed. Rubio had asked for unanimous consent to pass the bill, a move used to pass non-controversial bills that no one in the Senate opposes. Senators sometimes use the measure performatively, asking for unanimous consent on partisan or otherwise controversial bills or nominations with the expectation that another senator will object, preventing passage.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas would've done just that, but was not informed of the vote by his staff, BuzzFeed reported.

With the surprising Senate passage of the bill, the ball was in the House's court.

Insider asked Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Pete Aguilar of California, both members of Democratic leadership, whether the House might consider the bill at a press conference the following day in March.

"I think it's an important step that we should take in the House of Representatives, but I look forward to hearing from other members of the caucus," said Jeffries.

"I think it just caught us all by surprise that the Senate actually produced something and sent it to us," said Aguilar. "Usually bills go the other way."

But months went by without any action, despite a hearing on the topic by the House Energy and Commerce Committee just days before the Senate passed the bill.

"While I have yet to decide whether I support a permanent switch to Standard or Daylight Saving Time, it's time we stop changing our clocks," said Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the committee, at that hearing.

"I believe that any justifications for springing forward and falling back are either outdated or are outweighed by the serious health and economic impacts we now know are associated with the time changes," he added.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Insider at a briefing with reporters in December that there were "not a lot of discussions" among lawmakers about trying to move the bill, suggesting that the bill faced opposition from Pallone.

"The chairman of the committee, as you know, is not too enthusiastic about it," said Hoyer, noting the bill hadn't been reported out of the committee.

But Pallone — though confirming that it "doesn't look likely" the bill would get a vote in the House, didn't explicitly say he was against permanent daylight savings time, instead indicating a desire for agreement among committee members.

"I'm just trying to reach a consensus," he told Insider at the Capitol. "The problem is, half the people want standard time, others want daylight [savings time], others don't want to change it at all."

For now, the yearly time switch will remain in place, despite the best efforts of a motley crew of lawmakers.

"A cloud of darkness is set to descend on Americans this weekend," said Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, another Senate proponent of the bill, as daylight savings time ended in November this year. "I'm sending rays of support to the House to get this done so Americans don't have to suffer in darkness."