ARIZONA, USA — Arizona does not participate in the annual springing forward of daylight saving time every second Sunday in March.
And now the rest of the country could join Arizona and Hawaii, the only other state that doesn’t participate in daylight saving time, in no longer adjusting clocks twice a year.
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed by unanimous, bipartisan consent a bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act. The bill would make daylight saving time permanent starting in 2023.
The bill will now be sent to the U.S. House of Representatives where it must pass before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
>> Editor's note: The above video is from a previous broadcast.
If the legislation makes it to Biden’s desk it begs the question: What happens to Arizona?
According to the offices of Arizona's U.S. Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, essentially nothing will happen in Arizona.
Since the Pacific coast states move to Mountain Standard Time during daylight saving time, which is Arizona's permanent time zone, Arizona would always be aligned with those states instead of being an hour ahead of them during the winter months if the bill is signed into law.
Because the bill states that Arizona and Hawaii would be allowed to remain on each state's standard time and the bill is meant only for states that observe daylight saving time, Arizona is not directly affected by the bill.
Both Senator Sinema's office and Senator Kelly's office agreed that, in theory, Arizona could opt to switch to Mountain Daylight Time if the state wished to do that.
Since 1967, Arizona has chosen not to join practically the whole country and fall back and spring forward with daylight saving time.
Arizona did try out daylight saving time several times back in the day.
The most recent, according to Arizona State University professor of history Calvin Schermerhorn, was when the state complied for a year with the federal Uniform Time Act of 1966.
“There was a huge public outcry about it. Why the pushback? If you lengthen the school day, if you lengthen the business day, you have to air-condition most buildings more, right? Because most of the population lives in the Sonoran Desert,” he said.
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