Daylight saving time in Texas could be voted on in November

Austin, Texas – A new bill has been proposed to the Texas Legislature that would introduce daylight saving time on this year’s November ballot.

Austin Representative Vicki Goodwin introduced House Joint Resolution 80.

If the bill passes, it will give voters the choice of keeping standard time all year round or switching to daylight saving time.

The debate about daylight saving time in Texas has been going on for some time. The closest the Daylight Savings Time bill was passed was in 2015, when House Bill 150 passed committee and made it to the floor of the House of Representatives.

DST bills were also proposed in 2019.

Dr. Vivek Goswami, Austin cardiologist from St. David’s HealthCare, previously spoke about the negative health effects associated with changing times.

“We are seeing a 24 percent increase or spike in heart attacks within days or weeks of the time change. I mean the increase in the number of fatal car accidents. The number of strokes is increasing, the number of mental illnesses is increasing, including depression. There is even an increase in various immune-mediated disease conditions, including colitis,” said Dr. Goswami.

The US Senate passed a similar bill in March 2022 to end the time changes, but the so-called Sunshine Protection Act stalled in the US House of Representatives before eventually dying with a new congressional appointment.

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What is summer time?

According to the US Department of Commerce, daylight saving time, or DST, was introduced in the US in 1918 as a way to create more hours of sunshine when the weather is at its warmest.

During the long summer days, the sun rose in some northern regions between 4 and 5 am, when most non-farmers were asleep. Sunset happened before 8pm and people turned on the lights. Proponents thought that by setting the clock forward an hour, the country could divert some of the coal-fired electricity to the military instead of using it for an hour to power households. It was adopted again during World War II.

After every war, Congress overturned national laws, but many people enjoyed the extra hour of sunshine at the end of summer days, so some states and even cities observed daylight saving time, while others maintained standard time all year round. This meant that traveling relatively short distances could result in a change in time, or even three.

By 1966, airlines and other clock-watching businesses were tired of such fads and pushed Congress to pass the Uniform Time Act. He codified daylight saving time, although it changed periodically, especially the start and end dates. The only states that do not observe daylight hours are Hawaii and Arizona, with the exception of the last Navajo reservation that does.

DST is not observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the state of Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Indian Reservation).