LANSING, Mich. — This Sunday, Nov. 3, at 2 a.m., nearly every American will be turning their clocks back one hour for daylight saving time.
Only two U.S. states, Arizona and Hawaii, don't observe daylight saving time. They both opted out of adopting daylight saving time in the 1960s, shortly after the Uniformed Time Act of 1966 was passed.
The act allowed for states to opt out of observing daylight saving time and stay on standard time, but doesn't allow states to stay on daylight saving time.
Almost every state in the United States has introduced some sort of legislation that addresses the clock changing for daylight saving time, including Michigan.
In recent years, Michigan has twice attempted to pass legislation that would keep the state on daylight saving time year-round pending the repeal of the daylight saving time rules at the federal level.
In April of 2021, the Michigan House of Representatives passed House Bill 4052 of 2021 that would move the state to a year-round daylight saving time if Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania also made the switch. That bill passed the House but failed to make it out of a Senate committee.
Then in 2023, a bill was introduced to the Senate that also aims to adopt daylight saving time year-round as long as Congress allows the switch. That bill, Senate Bill 168 of 2023, was referred to committee the same day it was introduced and has not moved in 21 months.
Both of these bills would have also needed the federal government to allow the switch either with congressional approval or by repealing the daylight saving time rules in the Uniformed Time Act of 1966.
On the national level, there have been several attempts to make a change.
In 2022, the government saw one of the more successful attempts at mandating that all states stay on daylight saving time. The U.S. Senate passed a bill, called the "Sunshine Protection Act," that permanently established daylight saving time for the whole country, but that bill was never voted on by the House of Representatives.
While it would need a change at the federal level to allow a state or states to stay on daylight saving time year-round, any state can choose at any time via legislation to opt out and stay on standard time year-round.
