Lawmakers want this to be the last time Americans turn back clocks for daylight saving so they can see their children more. The country is scheduled to head into an extra hour of day light on April 6. But some lawmakers are hoping the new law won’t be fully implemented this year.
“This is an attempt to do something that some people had campaigned on for, but it’s such a change that the majority of Americans are for,” said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“It’s not that we’re opposed to daylight saving,” Denham said. “We just want to make sure it’s a done deal.”
Last year, Denham and other GOP lawmakers successfully pushed to have the clocks go ahead during the week of March 5. But last year’s law set the start time of the hour-long daylight saving time shift as the first Sunday in March. That was not enough to satisfy lawmakers.
Denham, who has expressed frustration with lawmakers in the past who vote on legislation on the same day they are scheduled for a vote, is hoping that this year, with fewer legislators showing up and the new law in place, lawmakers will support the change.
“When you have less members of Congress than usual for a special session, it makes it harder for them to push something through,” Denham said of the current process. “Maybe the majority of them will go to the next step.”
The state Senate voted last month to keep the start of daylight saving time as is, despite several lawmakers who had asked for a vote to change the start time to the first Sunday in April.
“It’s not a decision that I, personally, was taken with,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat who wants to make the change. “But, I have heard people speak on the other side that say it’s a terrible idea.”
Leno said a vote by senators next week will help him decide. Leno is among the more liberal members in the State Senate.
But the measure failed to get the 60 votes needed to pass.
Last year, Denham and other lawmakers sought to amend the California Constitution to include daylight saving time within the state’s general law.
But the legislature adjourned without voting on the change