Americans just fell back an hour, and Congress still can't lock the clock.
The Sunshine Protection Act — which would make daylight saving time permanent and end the twice-yearly clock switch — passed the House of Representatives in July, according to CBS News. Then it went to the Senate and died. The bill now sits stalled, waiting for the 119th Congress to expire at noon on January 3, 2027, at which point the whole process starts over, WSB-TV reported.
This is the bipartisan failure in its purest form: an issue that touches every American's daily life, backed by the president, passed by one chamber, and killed by institutional inertia in the other. Even states that tried to act on their own are stuck. Georgia passed a permanent daylight saving time bill five years ago, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, but it requires congressional approval to take effect — approval that never came, WSB-TV reported.
President Trump pushed hard for the change, posting what he said was Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton's personal cellphone number on social media and urging supporters to call, according to CBS News and the Los Angeles Times. Cotton's objection: the U.S. tried permanent daylight saving time before and went back to the switch "once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter," CBS News reported.
He has a point. The 1970s experiment with year-round daylight saving time was scrapped before reaching the 10-month mark, CBS News noted. Sleep scientists and doctors have argued for making standard time permanent instead, saying it aligns better with human sleep cycles and reduces health risks, the Los Angeles Times reported. Other research has shown permanent daylight saving could lead to more vehicle collisions with pedestrians during darker morning commutes.
So there's a real debate. But Congress isn't having it. The House passed a bill. The Senate didn't vote. Now it's about to expire. Californians voted in 2018 to authorize their lawmakers to end the time change, and nothing has happened since, the Los Angeles Times reported. Georgia passed a bill. Nothing. Hawaii and Arizona opted out decades ago and seem to manage just fine.
The pattern is familiar: a problem that hits every American's morning routine, broad consensus that something should change, and a system that can't deliver. If the House and Senate can't agree on whether the sun should come up at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. in January, why should anyone trust them with the border, the budget, or a foreign war?
The clocks fell back Sunday at 2 a.m. They'll spring forward again in March. And the same people who can't settle this will ask you to trust them with everything else.
