Sharing a ballot crowded with hard-fought initiatives to repeal a gas tax, expand rent control and cap health clinic profits, Proposition 7 — the proposal to keep daylight saving time all year in California — didn’t get much attention. There were no campaigns or major polls. Editorial writers dismissed it as kooky.
But the initiative by a San Jose lawmaker struck a chord with California voters, who cast their ballots just two days after setting their clocks back an hour to “standard time” for the shorter days of fall and winter. Nearly 60 percent of voters gave it a thumbs up.
“I’m definitely very happy the voters overwhelmingly supported it,” Assemblyman Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, who authored the measure, said.
So what happens now? Let’s just say, don’t worry about resetting your clock any time soon.
Proposition 7 merely allows the state Legislature, with a two-thirds vote, to change California’s current daylight saving time regime, which voters approved in 1949, provided it is OK by the federal government. Currently, it is not, though there is already a Florida bill pending in Congress that could change that.
Chu is satisfied that legislation will suffice to clear the federal hurdles and said he’ll focus on winning over the two-thirds of the state Legislature, where some of his colleagues have argued things are fine the way they are. State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, wrote the opposition argument in the voter guide.
Daylight saving time originated as an energy saving measure during World War I and was adopted sporadically in peacetime. In 1966, amid confusion over a patchwork of schemes in each state for beginning and ending daylight saving time, Congress stepped in with the Universal Time Act to standardize it nationwide. States could opt out of daylight saving time — it’s not observed in Hawaii or much of Arizona. But those like California that use it must follow Uncle Sam’s schedule — the act doesn’t let states keep it all year.
For Chu, the inspiration for his initiative was simply that he hates having to change his clocks twice a year. He and other critics of the seasonal clock change point to studies that suggest it leads to more traffic accidents and causes other health problems.
Chu initially suggested ditching daylight saving time and keeping standard time all year, but youth sports leagues said that would keep them from holding weekday practices and games after work and school because darkness would come too early. So Chu switched gears and pushed for permanent daylight saving time instead.
The idea has been quietly gaining momentum around the country in recent years. Florida lawmakers overwhelmingly passed legislation earlier this year to make daylight saving time year-round in the Sunshine State. Bills introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, ask Congress to approve the change for his state, and also to consider year-round daylight saving time nationwide. His spokeswoman said the bills are awaiting a commerce committee hearing.
“We plan to reintroduce our bill in the new Congress, and to continue working to make DST permanent,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for Rubio’s office.
Lawmakers in the New England states as well as Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Wyoming also have considered permanent daylight saving time. For many, a big concern is the potential to be out of step with neighboring states. A Massachusetts commission report in November on switching to year-round daylight saving time recommended doing so only if a majority of other Northeast states did so as well. Rubio’s office said that’s why they were pushing the bill for the whole country to make the switch.
But expect some resistance. The price for afternoon sun in the fall and winter is morning gloom. In the Bay Area, sunrise on Dec. 1 would be at 8:05 a.m. instead of 7:05 a.m. if daylight saving time were year-round.
The last time the country tried keeping daylight time all year, it didn’t last. Critics remind that amid an energy crisis and gas rationing, President Richard Nixon called for clocks to spring forward on Jan. 6, 1974, and stay that way till April 27, 1975. By that October, with kids in New York waiting for the bus in darkness at 7:35 a.m., extended daylight saving time was scrapped and the clocks fell back on Oct. 27.
But Chu was heartened Wednesday that many share his dislike of the twice-yearly clock-switching. He’s “just barely” getting adjusting to last weekend’s change back to standard time.
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