Yes, you still have to turn those clocks ahead for daylight saving time, California

Despite ongoing efforts in the U.S. Senate to enact permanent daylight saving time and several false starts in California to do the same, our clocks will still spring forward by an hour Sunday, as the adage goes.

Californians may feel particularly resentful Sunday morning, a bit groggy from the lost hour of sleep that has come to define the spring time change. It’s been years since Golden State voters signed off on the idea of doing away with the antiquated practice, which was adopted nationally in 1966.

California, though, had already been practicing daylight saving time since 1949, when legislation was passed that enacted the standard ‘spring forward, fall back’ process that the state continues to this day.

After several decades of extra-tired spring mornings, California had enough. In 2018, voters backed Proposition 7 with a 60% majority, which repealed the old 1949 law, opening up the Legislature to pass new laws to change to Pacific Daylight Time here for good, with federal approval.

Assemblyman Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, tried to do just that with Assembly Bill 7 in December 2018. His bill could have made daylight saving time permanent — a distinct difference from states like Hawaii and Arizona, which adhere to standard time year-round.

But AB 7 foundered at the state Capitol. Despite unanimously passing the Assembly, it never managed to get to the Senate floor. In 2020, Chu renewed efforts to nix the time change, but left office later that year, leaving California’s best hope for a fresh start with a recent U.S. Senate bill seeking to enact permanent daylight saving time in almost every state.

Senator Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and a handful of others from both sides of the aisle introduced a bill a week before the March 14 changeover dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021.

“The call to end the antiquated practice of clock changing is gaining momentum throughout the nation,” Rubio said in a statement announcing the bill, which he said could “give our nation’s families more stability throughout the year.”

Don’t get your hopes up just yet — the bill has yet to be voted on by senators. So sleep as well as you can tonight knowing that tomorrow comes a just little earlier than usual.

Unless Rubio’s bill were to pass both houses and be signed into law, you’ll get the hour back on November 7.

This story was originally published March 13, 2021 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Yes, you still have to turn those clocks ahead for daylight saving time, California."