Americans will turn their clocks back one hour at 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, Nov. 1, because the Senate has still not taken up the Sunshine Protection Act — the House-passed bill backed by President Donald Trump that would make daylight saving time permanent.
The House passed the bill in July by a bipartisan 307-117 vote, with majorities of both parties in favor. According to Fox News Politics, just 22 Republicans and 95 Democrats opposed it. But the legislation has sat in the Senate, which left Washington for an extended election recess without scheduling a vote. The Senate is unlikely to act before the end of the year, the Associated Press reported.
Trump has pressed the upper chamber repeatedly, including a Truth Social post this week: "The United States Senate is letting the daylight saving bill die when a vast Majority of the Country want it. Most people are demanding light in the evening, but ALL want not to change their clocks anymore. TAKE A VOTE!"
The pressure campaign escalated to the point that Trump shared the cellphone number of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., one of the bill's most vocal opponents, urging supporters to call the lawmaker. Cotton, a top Trump ally in the Senate, did not bend.
"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changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter. Arkansans don't want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I'll always put Arkansas first." — Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
Cotton warned in a 2025 Senate floor speech that permanent daylight saving time "would push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour, depriving Americans of morning sunlight," according to The Washington Post.
The practical effect of the stalemate: earlier sunsets across much of the country. AccuWeather data cited in coverage of the change shows the sun will set before 5 p.m. on Sunday in New York City, Chicago, Denver and Seattle. Caribou, Maine, will see sunset at 4:16 p.m. Houston and Miami will fare better, at 5:34 p.m. and 5:39 p.m. respectively.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., would end the twice-yearly clock changes and keep the nation on daylight saving time year-round. Under current law — the Uniform Time Act of 1966, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson — daylight saving time runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, and only Congress can change it.
The Senate bottleneck is not unique to this bill. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and other House lawmakers have complained that several pieces of passed legislation have stalled in the upper chamber. Georgia is one of several states that have passed their own permanent daylight saving time measures, but those laws require congressional approval to take effect — which has not come.
For now, the twice-yearly clock change stands. Clocks spring forward again on Sunday, March 14, 2027.
Our Take
This is what happens when the Senate becomes a legislative graveyard. The House did its job in July with a veto-proof, bipartisan vote. Trump has done his job, loudly, for months. The American people have made their preference known — they are sick of losing an hour of evening light every November and dragging their kids through a jarring schedule shift every March. Yet a handful of senators, led by Cotton, have decided that their personal preference for winter mornings outweighs the will of the country and the president of their own party.
Cotton's argument is not unreasonable on its face — permanent daylight saving time does mean late winter sunrises, and Congress did try it before, in 1974, only to repeal it within a year. But that is an argument for amending the bill or debating it on the floor, not for letting it die in a recess without a recorded vote. Trump's demand is simple and correct: TAKE A VOTE. Let every senator put their name on the record. If permanent daylight saving time is truly a bad idea, senators should be happy to vote it down and explain themselves to their constituents.
Instead, the Senate's inaction means Americans will once again stumble through the first week of November in the dark, resetting microwaves and car clocks, because 100 people in Washington could not be bothered to schedule a vote on a bill that passed the House with 307 votes. President Trump shared Cotton's number because the normal channels are not working. That is not a stunt — it is a signal that the Senate's procedural stranglehold has become so comfortable that only direct pressure from the public gets a reaction.
Patriots, if you are tired of changing your clocks, you know what to do. Call your senators. Tell them to bring the Sunshine Protection Act to the floor for a vote — up or down, on the record. November 1 is coming whether the Senate acts or not. The question is whether your senator will have to answer for it next November.
