Americans will turn their clocks back November 1 because the United States Senate refuses to hold a vote on a bill that nearly everyone in the country supports.
President Trump has been publicly pressuring the Senate to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent and end the twice-yearly clock shuffle. The House passed the bill in July. The Senate hasn't touched it. Trump told a Mississippi rally crowd on October 26 that the clock changes "drive everyone crazy" and "nobody wants to do (it) anymore," adding that "100% of the people" want the changes to end. He's right about the sentiment — ending the clock change polls consistently above 60% nationwide.
So who's killing it? Trump named him directly: Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas. Cotton, who chairs the Senate Republicans Conference, has blocked the bill, arguing that Congress tried permanent daylight saving before and repealed it "once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter." Senate Majority Leader John Thune has also publicly questioned whether the votes exist to pass it.
That's the whole story. One senator objects. The leadership won't force a vote. A reform backed by the president and a clear majority of the public dies in the dark — no debate, no roll call, no accountability.
Even Massachusetts, hardly Trump country, is moving in the same direction. The state's Democratic-controlled Senate voted initial approval on October 29 for a bill to enact permanent daylight saving time. Senate President Karen Spilka called the clock change "a ridiculous seasonal dance that upends our sleep schedules and scrambles our lives twice a year." The bill still needs full passage and the governor's signature.
But state action is moot without Congress. Under federal law, states can opt into permanent standard time on their own, but permanent daylight saving time — the version most people say they want, with light in the evening — requires congressional approval. The Sunshine Protection Act would grant it.
The Senate recessed September 30 and won't return until after the midterm elections, so the November 1 clock change is a done deal. The next one in March likely is too.
The Quincy Patriot Ledger covered the mechanics of the stalled bill and Massachusetts' parallel effort straightforwardly. Breitbart, for its part, didn't cover the daylight saving fight at all — its October 30 clip was devoted to Ken Paxton's Texas Senate race, a completely different story. No conservative outlet appears to have pressed Cotton on why a single senator's preference overrides the public will on an issue this simple.
That's the real tell. A bipartisan majority of Americans want to stop changing their clocks. The president is demanding it. The House already voted for it. And nothing happens — because one senator and a timid leader say so. When government can't deliver the easiest, most popular reform imaginable, it raises the question: what exactly is the Senate for?
