Why California Hasn’t Abolished Daylight Saving Time
At 2 a.m. on Sunday, the clocks in California will go forward one hour as we switch to daylight saving time.
The looming loss of 60 minutes of precious sleep made me wonder why the state hasn’t given up on changing the clocks twice a year, even though I’ve been hearing about that option for years.
It turns out to be complicated.
As a refresher, every year in the United States we jump forward one hour in March and then go back to standard time in November. The idea is to shift an hour of sunlight from early morning to evening, when more people can take advantage of it. One of the oldest arguments for the time change is that it saves energy, but there have been many conflicting studies about whether that is true.
Changing our clocks has not only been linked to disrupted sleep, as you might expect, but also to a higher risk of car accidents, heart attacks, and more. The only states not making the biannual switch are Arizona and Hawaii.
In November 2018, Californians overwhelmingly approved a voting measure to allow the legislature to change the daylight saving time period. But the measure did not actually put an end to it.
Since then, there have been several failed attempts to abolish the time change by making daylight saving time permanent. But federal law currently does not allow such a thing. In the past five years, 19 states have passed legislation or resolutions to switch to daylight saving time year-round. the National Conference of State Legislatures saidbut they are all dependent on congressional action.
California lawmakers are now taking a different approach. In the past few months, state lawmakers have introduced a pair of bills in the General Assembly and Senate to make standard time permanent, which would not require federal approval.
Assemblyman Tri Ta, a Republican who represents Garden Grove, Westminster and other communities in western Orange County, said his bill would fulfill a promise from the 2018 ballot measure. Californians “did not expect the Legislature to obstruct the will of the voters by refusing to pass this important measure,” he said in a statement.
Ta is working with Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican who represents parts of Sacramento and Placer counties and who introduced the other bill. Their proposals are part of a larger strategy with Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah, where lawmakers have proposed similar changes, to eventually bring much of the West into the same time zone, Niello told me.
As for why Niello took on the case, “It’s something I’ve grown increasingly tired of myself doing,” he said.
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And before you go: good news
Two local nonprofits have teamed up to bring night markets to San Francisco’s Chinatown every month for most of the year. NBC Bay Area reports.
Under this initiative, BeChinatown, a non-profit organization in Chinatown, will organize a night market every second Friday of the month starting this week. The market features local food vendors serving Chinatown specialties including AA Bakery, the Lucky Creation Vegetarian Restaurant and Dragon Papa Dessert, as well as stalls selling other goods.
The idea for the recurring event was inspired by the success of a two-day night market held in Chinatown last November that drew thousands of San Franciscans for festivities, food and dancing. After the event, Manny Yekutiel of the Civic Joy Fund, a local nonprofit that funds community projects, gave BeChinatown a $100,000 grant to keep the initiative going.
The new financing will allow BeChinatown to operate the markets through November. “The narrative around our downtown is that it is empty,” Yekutiel told NBC. “Chinatown is the beating heart of it, and that’s why I think it’s important that we support it as much as possible.”