Should Illinois Follow Louisiana’s “Timely” Move?

A bill signed into law by Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards says the state will adopt daylight saving time as the year-round standard time, pending changes in federal law.

The law only goes into effect if the United States Congress amends current federal law to allow states to decide whether or not they adopt daylight saving time as their year-round standard time.

If that should happen while the state is in daylight saving time, the state will not return to standard time. If that happens while the state is in standard time, the law takes effect at 2am on the second Sunday in March.

Being that we live in controversial times, this move is decidedly non-controversial. At least when you look at some of the polling numbers on the topic.

One poll, from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 4 in 10 Americans would like to see their clocks stay on standard time year-round, while about 3 in 10 prefer to stay on daylight saving time. About another 3 in 10 prefer what is the status quo in most of the United States, switching back and forth between daylight saving time in the summer and standard time in the winter.

Another poll has 7 in 10 Americans preferring not to switch back and forth to mark daylight saving time. There was very strong sentiment behind this as well. 76% percent of respondents who favored ending Daylight Saving Time were either “Very Strongly in Favor” or “Strongly In Favor” of ending Daylight Saving Time (DST) and stopping Fall Back so that the permanent time is the Summer Time that we’re moving away from today. Only 19 percent of respondents were either “Strongly Against” or “Very Strongly Against” ending Daylight Saving Time.

Should Illinois get on this bandwagon?

My totally non-scientific poll of the staff here in our building showed nearly 100% support for ending the practice of changing the clocks, regardless of how we do it.