Push For Year-Round DST Intensifies: What New Hampshire Lawmakers Say

Daylight saving time is set to end on Sunday, Nov. 1, but a renewed push in Congress could end the spring-forward, fall-back routine that has been a fixture of American life since the 1960s.

President Donald Trump is putting renewed pressure on the U.S. Senate to support a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, taking the unusual step of posting on social media the phone number of Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and asking Americans to call him in support of the bill.

Cotton and some other outspoken Republicans have argued permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings when children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.

Proponents, including the White House, argue that the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active.

U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan voted for the Sunshine Protection Act when it was proposed in 2022, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. Outgoing Sen. Jeanne Shaheen told U.S. News she had mixed feelings about the proposal because of safety concerns.

Both U.S. Reps. Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander, both Democrats, voted against it earlier this year, according to WMUR-TV, expressing concerns about dark winter mornings.

While expressing frustration with broader partisan standoffs in Washington, Hassan stated that she welcomed the bipartisan opportunity to pass the Sunshine Protection Act. She has emphasized that her constituents in New Hampshire have "made it abundantly clear" that they want to observe daylight saving time year-round. Her position is largely driven by the geographic realities of New England winters, noting that it often gets dark around 4:00 p.m. during the winter months in her home state. [1, 2]

‘It’s A Lot Of Work’

Daylight saving time is that period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the United States are set one hour ahead of standard time. Hawaii and most of Arizona do not observe it — and under the bill, states can opt out of the change if their respective legislatures act to do so before the bill's enactment.

“It’s a lot of work for a lot of people, running around for two days, changing all the clocks in the house,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Saturday for a rally in Vandalia, Ohio.

“It discombobulates everybody,” he said.

Cotton, who Trump has blamed for stopping the legislation in the Senate, wrote on social media that he doesn’t like changing clocks either but said, “Congress has enacted permanent daylight saving time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter.”

Senate In Recess

The Senate adjourned for the midterm elections and is not scheduled to return to the Capitol until the week of Nov. 9 — after the seasonal time change occurs.

The United States has continuously been on a twice-a-year clock-changing routine since 1966, except for a brief period in January 1974 when daylight saving time was temporarily enacted in response to an energy crisis. Congress repealed year-round DST the following October after a flurry of complaints about dark winter mornings.

It was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The Senate passed a bill four years ago to make daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House.

A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that if forced to choose, most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening. Only 12 percent of U.S. adults favor the current system of daylight saving time, which requires people in most states to change their clocks twice a year, while 47 percent oppose it and 40 percent are neutral.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Editor's note: This post was scripted by another Patch staffer, not New Hampshire's editor, for publication on New Hampshire sites.