The push to make daylight saving time permanent across the United States has run into a significant wall in the Senate, despite overwhelming support from President Donald Trump.
A bill that passed the House this summer would allow states to voluntarily observe daylight saving time year-round, effectively ending the twice-annual clock change ritual that frustrates millions of Americans.
The legislation, widely popular with voters and the president, has been stalled in the upper chamber due to a geographic divide that cuts across both political parties.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has emerged as one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, vowing to block any attempts to fast-track it through the Senate floor.
Trump escalated the standoff over the weekend by posting Cotton’s personal phone number on Truth Social, publicly urging residents of Arkansas to pressure their senator into changing his position.
“Almost everybody wants ‘The Sunshine Protection Act’ to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote, calling it “a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
Cotton fired back on X, pointing to historical precedent where Congress enacted permanent daylight saving time only to reverse the decision after public backlash, particularly from parents of school-age children.
“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton said, adding that “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark.”
That concern echoes what happened in the 1970s, when lawmakers enacted year-round daylight saving time and then repealed it roughly a year later after widespread complaints about children waiting for school buses in total darkness.
The opposition to the bill is less about party lines and more about geography, with mountainous and inland Western states pushing back against coastal states that favor the change.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) have both warned that permanent daylight saving time would mean sunrise in parts of their states would not occur until as late as 9:30 in the morning during winter months.
“I can see where Florida likes it for tee times at certain times of the year, but it doesn’t work so well for moms and dads putting kids on buses when the sunrise in Western Montana wouldn’t be till 9:30 in the morning,” Daines told CNN in July.
On the other side, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced a Senate version of the bill, with Murray arguing that residents in Washington state “despair at the prospect of losing an hour of precious sunlight” each winter.
Even if the political will existed to move the bill forward, the Senate’s limited floor time remains a practical obstacle following the midterm elections in November.
Competing legislative priorities, including the National Defense Authorization Act, supplemental war funding, and a looming government shutdown battle, are all expected to take precedence over the clock-change debate.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) acknowledged the complexity of the issue in July, noting that the right answer varies depending on where a lawmaker’s constituents live.
“Depends where you’re living in the country and the impact — what it would be, in your own home state,” Barrasso said. “So it’s not as simple as what one state might like.”
