The U.S. appears close to observing permanent daylight saving time. It's something more than a dozen states have been waiting for.
Page B1From§Eachthe noon edition — 27 September 2026
Nineteen states vote to keep mornings dark for schoolkids, no one polls the schoolkids
As it ran on the front
Standard time, the twice-yearly agreement that a clock in November means something different than one in June, is dead. It was killed this month by legislative accretion: nineteen state governments have signed statutes locking their clocks onto daylight time year-round, each one waiting only on the single federal switch that has not yet been thrown. The Hill counted the states at nineteen on September 20 and reported the same count three days later, this time turning to a plainer question: what happens to a child waiting at a bus stop in the dark.
The answer arrived without ceremony, in the same dispatch that asked the question. That finding sat one paragraph away from the Senate's own position, reported in the same article: the chamber is not ready to make the leap, and school hours are the reason given. Cause and reluctance, printed side by side in one story, no separate hearing required to connect them — which is its own kind of bunk, calling a documented finding a last-minute snag.…
…(cont) It is preceded in death, in each of those statehouses, by the twice-annual ritual of changing the clocks at all — a ritual retired at the state level before Washington acted on it, or against it.
The Washington Examiner reported on September 23 that this autumn still brings the same shift on schedule: nearly all Americans will set their clocks back an hour in November, the nineteen state statutes not yet in force. Standard time, then, is not being repealed. It is being outvoted in advance, state by state, waiting on one federal signature to make nineteen local decisions the law of the land.
In lieu of flowers, a single hearing — anywhere, before any of the nineteen statutes take effect — that puts the question on the record: what time does the sun come up for a child walking to school, and was that hour ever weighed against the convenience of an evening with more light in it.
“Nineteen states locked in darker mornings for the kid at the bus stop before one hearing asked about the kid at the bus stop. The Senate's excuse and the school-hours warning ran in the same article — that's not caution, that's a talking point somebody already had sitting in a drawer. Question is whose kid gets weighed against whose convenience, and right now the convenience is winning nineteen to zero.”
“This is bipartisan, sunshine for everybody, better mood, more retail hours — did I say retail, I meant family time. And the school thing, look, kids adjust, we've been changing clocks forever, that's just — okay, we're currently trying to stop changing them, forget I said that.”
The receipts
Autumn marks the return of cooler weather and cozy, short days. It also means nearly all Americans will soon shift their clocks back an hour in November, marking the months of early sunsets. The debate over daylight saving time has taken on a new dimension in recent years, with lawmakers in Washington and state capitals […]
Winters would look much different if our clocks were to lock.
A major hurdle stands in the way of permanent daylight saving time: schools. Despite momentum from the White House, lawmakers in the lower chamber and nearly 20 states to stop switching the clocks, the Senate does not seem ready to make the leap — largely because of how schools would be affected by the change....
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.