Americans across every party want to stop changing their clocks twice a year — and Congress still can't get it done.
A March YouGov poll makes the public's will unmistakable: 64% of Americans want to eliminate the biannual time shuffle entirely. Just 16% want to keep the current system. The House already passed a bill to make permanent daylight saving time a reality. The Senate is sitting on it. If Washington can't even fix the clocks, what can it fix?
The numbers are not close. According to the YouGov survey, majorities of Democrats (56%), Independents (62%), and Republicans (75%) all support ending the time change. When forced to choose between permanent options, 43% prefer permanent DST compared to 28% who favor permanent standard time. The DST preference spans the partisan map: 44% of Democrats, 39% of Independents, and 48% of Republicans want later sunrises and later sunsets.
Either permanent option polls better than the status quo. More Americans support than oppose permanent standard time (43% vs. 23%) and permanent DST (51% vs. 19%). The message from voters couldn't be clearer: pick one and stick with it.
The Sunshine Protection Act, which would allow states to move to permanent DST, has already cleared the House. It now sits in the Senate, where its future is — in the preferred phrasing of both MassLive and AL.com — "uncertain." Nineteen states have already signaled they're ready to end the time change the moment Congress gives them the green light.
This is bipartisan failure at its most basic. Republicans and Democrats can't agree on much, but the voters they represent agree on this. The House managed to move a bill. The Senate, that deliberative body where popular legislation goes to die, can't seem to find the hours in the day.
Both outlets covering this poll ran essentially the same copy, and neither pressed the obvious question: why has the Senate stalled on something this popular with this much momentum? The poll was taken in March. The House passed its bill. Nineteen states are waiting. The public is waiting. The clock is literally ticking.
The Senate doesn't lack for time. It lacks for will. When three-quarters of one party, nearly two-thirds of independents, and a majority of the other party all want the same simple reform — and Congress still can't deliver — the problem isn't the clock.
