Oregon lawmaker aims to make daylight saving time permanent

After the annual “spring forward” weekend of an hour of sleep lost, Oregon state Senator Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) announced Monday she will be working across state lines with other state’s lawmakers in a bid to stay on daylight saving time year-round.

“I think most people would prefer to stay on daylight saving time throughout the remaining four months of the year that we are not,” Thatcher said in a news release. “My office has been in contact with legislators in Washington and California, and we are enthusiastic about people not having to change their clocks again.”

Thatcher introduced SB 99 in 2015 to end the unnecessary time change. Since then, other states including Washington, California, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah have all introduced legislation similar to Thatcher’s.

“I am reaching out to the other legislators in these states to try and build a coalition around this issue,” Thatcher said.

In coming weeks, Thatcher said plans on having a conference call in coordination with as many of these legislators as possible. The office of Washington state Sen. Jim Honeyford (R-Sunnyside) said he was happy to work with Thatcher on the issue and provided this statement from him:

“Daylight saving time has proven to be more trouble than it’s worth. Most of the supposed benefits have turned out to be apocryphal or downright false, while the harms are all too real. Studies have shown that the practice has led to an increased number of accidents, as well as a higher rate of suicides. There are also health problems generally within the week of switching times back and forth.”

If the state legislatures agree to end the time change, they will then petition the federal government for a change, Thatcher’s office said.