Texas Legislators want to give Texans the ability to vote on Daylight Savings Time

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - Two Texas lawmakers are once again taking a stance on daylight savings time, filing to senate bills which would let Texans vote on whether or not to keep it or essentially do away with it.

Even if Texans were allowed to vote on the subject right now it wouldn’t matter, since federal congress doesn’t allow citizens to remain in daylights savings time year around, only standard time.

State Representative of the 86th district, John Smithee tells us what would need to happen first in order for this matter to be left to Texans.

“Well, congress would need to pass and the president would need to sign at the federal legislation at the federal level, which I know has been pending for at least six years now; but I don’t think it’s really fair to submit the question to the voters until we at least have that viable option,” says Smithee.

He believes this important matter should be left up to Texans to decide on, since it’ll affect everybody’s everyday lives in the state.

There is a three way split when it comes to the situation.

Some want to keep daylight savings time year around, others want standard time year around, and the other third wants to keep changing their clocks like we’ve always done.

Nonetheless, Texas legislators think it should be up to Texans to vote on the matter.

“There are some some issues that are so fundamental and so important to people in their families and that’s one of them because it will affect every family in Texas for the rest of their lives,” said Smithee

He goes onto say, “this is one of those issues that most everybody has an opinion on, one way or the other.”

Bettencourt stated in a press release, “When you think of hot-button public policy issues, what usually comes to mind are things such as property tax relief and school finance and pension reform. However, the issue of daylight savings time has roused passions on both sides of the debate for over 100 years.”

Smithee says a lot of people would like to go to daylights savings year around, but there are some factors to consider such as construction and landscaping workers.

“They cannot work too early in the morning because the noise factor can cause problems for people who are still asleep. They can work later into the night or so if it’s daylight, if there’s enough light to work,” says Smithee.

Another aspect to consider is how this would affect sports.

“College games that start at the early slot, 11 o’clock slot, now would start at 10 o’clock and the NCAA won’t permit that. So Texas colleges would lose one of the three or four available slots for college for television games. That’s just one consideration, but it would it would cost the state a considerable amount of revenue if that were to happen,” explains Smithee.

As of now, the way propositions are worded, the vote could occur at the next general election in November of this year.

This would make it too late to change and because of that, Smithee assumes, if passed, it would go into affect March of 2024.

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