Will California Ditch Daylight Saving Time?
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New legislation could lead to a statewide vote on the matter.
California voters may end up getting to decide what could be a very contentious statewide issue: whether to abandon Daylight Saving Time and observe Standard Time year-round.
There’s no shortage of people who grumble about having to change their clocks by one hour twice a year. Now, California Assemblyman Kansen Chu has introduced legislation, Assembly Bill 2469, that if approved by lawmakers, would ask voters to undo Proposal 12, a statewide referendum from 1949 that established Daylight Saving Time in the Golden State.
Chu believes Daylight Saving Time is antiquated and an annoyance for state residents.
“I cannot believe that anybody would like to do this fall backward, spring forward thing twice a year,” the first-term Democratic lawmaker from San José said, according to The Sacramento Bee.
While Chu has cited research that found an increase in workplace injuries associated with the twice-a-year time shift, among other negative impacts, there are defenders of Daylight Saving Time, who tout the benefits of added daylight in the evening hours.
But if Californians end up deciding to join Arizona and Hawaii on year-round Standard Time, it could potentially cause some logistical headaches for those who deal with businesses in other states.
As the L.A. Weekly wrote on Saturday:
In the summer months, California would be four hours behind the East Coast, not three. Stock traders in San Francisco would have to get up an extra hour early to be ready for the opening bell in New York. It would also be harder to schedule live events, like the World Series, at times when the whole country could tune in.
This was the main reason that Indiana switched to daylight saving time, [“Seize the Daylight” author David] Prerau says. "Businessmen felt that people who were calling from out of state didn’t know what time it was," he says. "They were calling at the wrong time because it wasn't the same difference all the time."
Sheila Danzig, an advocate for eliminating Daylight Saving Time nationwide, told the San Jose Mercury News that although there are plenty of people who would like to see a shift to Standard Time, opinions are divided over where to reallocate the daylight.
"Some prefer light in the morning and some in the evening," she said, according to the Mercury News.
And that could lead to a confusing scenario, Danzig continued: "Everybody wants a change, but everybody's got to pick one. If the whole country starts randomly scattering which one they use, it will make everyone go crazy."
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive's Route Fifty.
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