Clocks Fall Back Sunday as the Bill to End the Switch Sits in the Senate
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1. The House voted 308-117 in July to make daylight saving time permanent, and President Trump keeps pressing the Senate to follow. The bill hasn't moved there. Nineteen states have laws ready to lock their clocks if Congress allows it. Sleep doctors and a new Current Biology study say permanent standard time would be the safer choice. Nearly everyone agrees on ending the switch. The fight is over which time to keep.
By Rachel Dunmore, Washington Correspondent
Published · 9 min read
The Overview
The facts, straight
What changes for you Sunday
- When: Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, Nov. 1. At that moment, clocks go back to 1 a.m., so the 1 o'clock hour happens twice (NIST).
- What you'll notice: Sunrise and sunset both come about an hour earlier by the clock. That means more light in the morning and darker evenings.
- What to do: Phones, computers and most connected devices update on their own. Wall clocks, ovens, microwaves and car dashboards usually need a hand. If you set the clocks back Saturday night, you get an extra hour of sleep.
- Who doesn't change: Hawaii and most of Arizona stay on standard time all year, so they don't switch. The Navajo Nation in Arizona does observe daylight time and will fall back. Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands don't switch either (NIST; NCSL).
- Next switch: Unless Congress changes the law, clocks spring forward again on the second Sunday in March (49 CFR 71.2).
What's happening. This weekend's switch is happening on schedule even though the House voted this summer to end it. On July 14, the House passed H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, by a vote of 308 to 117 (Roll Call 238). Republicans voted 193-22 for it. Democrats were split, 114 for and 95 against. The House's one independent voted yes, and six members didn't vote. The House took it up under a closed rule, which allowed one hour of debate and no amendments.
What the bill does. The House-passed text repeals the section of the 1966 Uniform Time Act that sets the spring-forward and fall-back dates. It then moves every U.S. time zone's standard time one hour later, which in practice makes today's summer clock the clock for the whole year. States that already skip daylight saving time, such as Hawaii and Arizona, could choose to keep their current time. The text sets no later start date, so it would take effect when it became law. The sponsor is Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has the Senate version, S. 29.
Where it's stuck. The Senate received H.R. 139 on July 15 and sent it to the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. Congress.gov shows no Senate action on it since then. S. 29 has also sat in that committee since January 2025. The Senate is holding only short pro forma sessions until after the election and returns for business Nov. 9, according to the Senate floor schedule. The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Senate is unlikely to act before the end of the year. The Senate has done this before: it passed an earlier version, S. 623, by unanimous consent on March 15, 2022, but the House never voted on it. This time the order is reversed.
Trump's push. President Trump backs permanent daylight saving time and has been pressing the Senate. At a rally in Corinth, Mississippi, on Monday, he said the Senate "only has a few days left to vote against the ridiculous two times a year changing your clocks." He asked Mississippi Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith to work on it, and he said the bill "remains locked in the Senate, meaning Daylight Saving Time will end as scheduled" (transcript). He also said the House had passed such a bill "five times." The House voted on H.R. 139 in July, but we found no record of four earlier House votes. The White House's Rapid Response 47 account didn't post a clip of the Corinth remarks. Earlier this month, it posted Trump naming the senator he blames for the holdup:
Video: Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) on X, Oct. 3, 2026. In the clip, Trump says, "Now, we'd like to have the vote in the Senate. Tom Cotton is holding it up."
The states are waiting. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 19 states have passed laws to move to year-round daylight saving time if Congress allows it: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The Congressional Research Service lists the same 19. Not all of them are simple switches. NCSL notes that some take effect only if neighboring states pass the same law, and the Idaho and Oregon laws cover only their Pacific-time areas. Federal law already lets a state stay on standard time all year, as Hawaii and Arizona do. It does not let a state stay on daylight time all year. That's why these 19 laws depend on Congress.
What the Left Says
The progressive and Democratic case
The loudest opposition to permanent daylight saving time comes from sleep doctors and scientists, not from one party. In the House, Democrats split almost evenly, and many of the "no" votes came from them. Their case is that dark winter mornings are the real cost, and that permanent standard time would end the switch without that cost.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has called for permanent standard time since 2023. The day after the House vote, the group said the House "chose to force dark, dangerous mornings on millions of Americans." It urged the Senate to "reject this dangerous mandate." It says permanent daylight time would put the clock out of step with the body's internal rhythm, cut into sleep and raise the risk of crashes for children walking to school or waiting for buses in the dark. The group backs the Sunshine for Our Kids Act (H.R. 9638). That bill, from Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., and Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., would make standard time permanent and let states choose year-round daylight time if they want it. This week the academy posted a warning about drowsy driving after the change:
Post: American Academy of Sleep Medicine (@AASMorg) on X, Oct. 29, 2026.
The new study. On Thursday, University of Washington researchers published "Over a billion more dark-morning school commutes for K–12 children under the Sunshine Protection Act" in Current Biology. Guadalupe Rodríguez Ferrante is the lead author and Horacio de la Iglesia is the senior author. The team used real start times for 16,093 schools in 14 of the 19 states with permanent-daylight laws, plus local sunrise times, and counted how often children would leave home before sunrise. Here is what they report:
- In those 14 states, permanent daylight time would add about 356 million "child days" of leaving home before sunrise each year compared with today's switching system. A child day is one child leaving home in the dark on one school day. Compared with permanent standard time, the increase is about 457 million.
- Applied to every U.S. public school, assuming kids leave home at 8 a.m., the authors estimate more than 2 billion additional dark-morning trips a year. The lead author told UW News that 8 a.m. is "pretty late," so this is likely an underestimate.
- Looking at a decade of federal fatal-crash records for the 7 to 8:30 a.m. window on school days, they found that crashes before sunrise were more likely to involve a pedestrian than crashes after sunrise. The odds were 1.77 times higher across all ages and 2.22 times higher for pedestrians ages 5 to 18.
What the study doesn't show: it doesn't estimate how many more crashes or deaths permanent daylight time would cause. The crash finding is about which fatal crashes involve pedestrians, and the 2 billion figure is a projection built on an assumed departure time. "You could call it the Sunshine Destruction Act," de la Iglesia said in the university's release.
Where Reality Likely Sits
Radio Purple's analysis
The common ground is real. Supporters, opponents, the president and the sleep doctors all want the same first thing: stop changing the clocks twice a year. Trump said it himself in Corinth. He prefers afternoon sun, but "100 percent of the people" don't want to keep "changing their clocks." Cotton opens with "No one likes changing the clock." The sleep academy also wants the switch gone.
The fight is over which hour to keep. Permanent daylight time keeps the long summer evenings in winter, but winter sunrises would come about an hour later by the clock. That falls hardest on the western edges of time zones, in places like western Montana, Georgia and Washington state. Permanent standard time keeps winter mornings bright, but summer sunsets would come an hour earlier. In 1974, during the energy crisis, the country tried year-round daylight time and backed out within a year (CRS). That's the history Cotton is pointing to.
What's realistic. The House bill is the only version that has passed a chamber this Congress, and the Senate hasn't moved on it. With the Senate out until Nov. 9 and a short session after that, the bill is likely to die when this Congress ends unless Senate leaders bring it up. If it dies, it would have to start over next year. The 19 state laws wouldn't expire, but they can't take effect until Congress acts. One option avoids Congress entirely: any state can already choose year-round standard time on its own, the way Arizona and Hawaii do.
Meanwhile, the clocks still fall back an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday.
If the country stopped switching for good, would you rather have brighter winter mornings or lighter winter evenings, and why?
What the Right Says
The conservative and Republican case
The bill's backers are mostly Republicans, plus a sizable group of Democrats. They say Americans are tired of changing the clocks and want the extra evening light that permanent daylight time keeps. Buchanan posted Wednesday:
Post: Rep. Vern Buchanan (@VernBuchanan) on X, Oct. 28, 2026.
"Permanent daylight saving time would bring meaningful health, economic, and family benefits. That's why my bipartisan Sunshine Protection Act passed the House by a vote of 308-117. America is ready to lock the clock."
Scott pressed the Senate again this morning:
Post: Sen. Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) on X, Oct. 30, 2026.
"This weekend, the American people will once again have to change their clocks. It's annoying, it's outdated, and it disrupts EVERYONE'S lives. Let's make this the last time we go through it. It's time for the Senate to pass my Sunshine Protection Act and send it to President Trump's desk ASAP."
In Corinth, Trump argued that people want light after work. He also claimed that "less crime is committed because you have more light in the evening" and said changing the clocks "actually costs a lot of money" (transcript). He offered no figures, and Radio Purple hasn't checked those claims for this story.
The right is split, though, and the split is what's holding up the bill. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says permanent daylight time has been tried before and then repealed:
Post: Sen. Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) on X, Oct. 3, 2026.
"No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter. Arkansans don't want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I'll always put Arkansas first."
Other Republican senators have told reporters the House bill won't get a vote soon. Sen. Todd Young of Indiana said he understands it is a "non-starter" with Senate GOP leaders, and Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio said "No way" when asked whether it would pass. The AP also reported that Majority Leader John Thune has voted against similar bills in the past (AP via PBS).
Sources & Citations
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, “Daylight Saving Time Rules”, October 30, 2026.
- eCFR (U.S. Department of Transportation regulation), “49 CFR 71.2, Annual advancement of standard time”, October 30, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Transportation, “Uniform Time”, October 30, 2026.
- Congress.gov, “H.R. 139, Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 (bill page and actions)”, July 15, 2026.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), “H.R. 139, Engrossed in House (text)”, July 14, 2026.
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, “Roll Call 238, H.R. 139, On Passage”, July 14, 2026.
- Congress.gov, “House Roll Call Vote 238, 119th Congress, 2nd Session”, July 14, 2026.
- Congress.gov, “S. 29, Sunshine Protection Act of 2025”, January 7, 2025.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), “S. 623 (117th Congress), Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, as passed by the Senate”, March 15, 2022.
- U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo), “H.R. 9638, Sunshine for Our Kids Act of 2026 (introduced text)”, July 9, 2026.
- U.S. Senate Daily Press, “Thursday, October 29, 2026 (floor schedule)”, October 29, 2026.
- National Conference of State Legislatures, “Daylight Saving Time | State Legislation”, October 30, 2026.
- Congressional Research Service, “Daylight Saving Time (DST), CRS Report R45208”, July 24, 2026.
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine, “AASM condemns House passage of Sunshine Protection Act”, July 15, 2026.
- Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (via PubMed Central), “Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement”, January 1, 2023.
- Current Biology, “Over a billion more dark-morning school commutes for K–12 children under the Sunshine Protection Act (Rodríguez Ferrante et al.)”, October 29, 2026.
- University of Washington News, “Permanent Daylight Saving Time could lead to at least 2B more dark commutes to school for US children”, October 29, 2026.
- Roll Call Factba.se, “Speech: Donald Trump Holds a Midterm Political Rally in Corinth, Mississippi (transcript)”, October 26, 2026.
- X, “Post by Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47), video of President Trump on changing clocks”, October 3, 2026.
- X, “Post by Rep. Vern Buchanan (@VernBuchanan)”, October 28, 2026.
- X, “Post by Sen. Rick Scott (@SenRickScott)”, October 30, 2026.
- X, “Post by Sen. Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton)”, October 3, 2026.
- X, “Post by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (@AASMorg)”, October 29, 2026.
- PBS News, “Senate is skeptical about making daylight saving time permanent despite Trump's pressure (AP)”, October 29, 2026.
Positions above are attributed to the public statements and published reporting cited here. Quotations are taken from these sources; Radio Purple does not publish unattributed or invented quotes. See an error? Request a correction.
