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The battle over America’s clocks unexpectedly reemerged over the weekend, with President Donald Trump engaging in a battle with one of his top allies over the issue.
There have been many fights in Congress during Trump’s nearly two years in office for his second term that ended in partisan victory or failed gloriously, but one of them was quietly shelved despite his pressure on Republicans to do something about it.
And that fight is over by allowing states to voluntarily observe daylight saving time year-round to effectively eliminate the ritual of changing clocks twice a year. It’s a popular issue with voters and the president, and a bill passed the House this summer to implement the change. But this is a political issue that has divided both sides of the aisle and stopped in the Upper House.
Trump urges Senate to pass bill making DST permanent after overwhelming House vote
President Donald Trump wants to make daylight saving time permanent, but a geographic coalition of northern and southern states is engaged in a heated debate over the merits of the change, dooming the bill. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images; Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has been one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, vowing to block any attempt to fast-track it. That resistance earned him a post on Truth Social from Trump, who shared his home phone number over the weekend in an effort to pressure lawmakers to change his stance on daylight saving time.
“Almost everyone wants the Sunshine Protection Act to pass, except Tom Cotton,” Trump said. “To the great people of Arkansas, let your senator know that this would be a BIG bipartisan VICTORY for the United States Senate and for America itself.”
Cotton responded, noting that Congress had already adopted daylight saving time, only to reverse that change shortly after.
“No one likes to change the clock, including me, but Congress has already passed permanent daylight saving time several times and repealed it each time when Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton said on
Trump faces Republican rebellion on DST as Senate bill nears deadlock
In the 1970s, lawmakers adopted year-round daylight saving time. But Americans quickly grew unhappy with the change, especially parents whose children had to wait in the dark for the school bus. It was repealed about a year later.
And Cotton recently responded to an off-the-cuff question from a fellow Republican during their weekly closed-door policy lunches, a source told Fox News Digital, where he made a similar argument to his response to Trump. No one pushed back during the meeting.
The question of daylight saving time, support for a permanent solution or maintaining the status quo is more geographical than political.
It is partly an opposition between the mountainous and western states and the coastal states. On one side of the spectrum are lawmakers like Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., who introduced a Senate version of the bill last year.
“Every year, more Americans grow more frustrated with adjusting their clocks back and forth, and every winter, Washington residents despair at the thought of losing a precious hour of sunlight when we are forced to switch to daylight saving time,” Murray said in a statement at the time.
HOUSE ADOPTS DST REFORM AS TRUMP SIGNALS SUPPORT FOR ENDING CLOCK CHANGE
Aerial view of downtown Bozeman, Montana, at dusk. (iStock/DianeBentleyRaymond)
Lawmakers from landlocked Western states, like Sens. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Mike Rounds, R-S.D., warn that it would cause children in their states to go to school in the dark.
“I can see where Florida likes departure times at certain times of the year, but that doesn’t work very well for moms and dads putting their kids on buses when sunrise in western Montana doesn’t happen until 9:30 a.m. That’s not going to work for us,” Daines told CNN in July.
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The most important currency in the Senate is speaking time. And lawmakers won’t have much time to waste when they return after the midterm elections in November. Although a popular topic, more pressing issues such as the National Defense Authorization Act, additional war funding, and a looming battle over government funding will likely take priority.
And Republican leaders recognize that it’s not as simple as a simple yes or no vote for lawmakers on both sides.
“It depends on where you live in the country and the impact — what that would be, in your own home state,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in July. “So it’s not as simple as a state might want.”
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