Last updated on 2024-01-15
The first great dilly-dally bill of the 2024 Session comes from Republican (of course) Representative Ben Krohmer (R-20/Mitchell), who wants to waste more Legislative time on debating daylight saving time. His House Bill 1009 would put South Dakota on daylight saving time all year long… but it takes a curious route to get there.
HB 1009 acknowledges that federal law establishes official time zones and only allows states to observe standard time year-round, not daylight saving time. HB 1009 thus plays the trick of declaring that from 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November until 2 a.m. on the second Sunday on March, the eastern part of South Dakota will observe Eastern time and the western part of the state will observe Central time.
So yes, through the cold winter months, Jazz Nightly would start at 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central.
HB 1009 provides for the possibility that the U.S. House of Representatives will get its poop in a group and join the Senate in approving permanent daylight saving time (the House get things done? yeah, right—only if you make Nancy Pelosi Speaker again). In that case, HB 1009 would revert our time zones to Central in the east and Mountain in the west year-round.
Representative Krohmer’s workaround sounds futile. The federal statute HB 1009 cites, 15 USC 260, declares the federal intent of maintaining uniform time within the standard times zones. If federal law views permanent daylight saving time (but not permanent standard time? Who writes this stuff?) as a violation of that desired uniformity, South Dakota probably can’t get around that violation by calling daylight saving time “Eastern time” or “Central time”.
But Representative Krohmer has the two smartest people in the Legislature co-sponsoring his bill. Representative Tony Venhuizen (R-13/Sioux Falls) and Senate boss Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska) have both signed on to HB 1009, along with three other Republicans. Schoenbeck and Venhuizer certainly aren’t dilly-dalliers. We can count on those policy wizards to be at the committee hearings on HB 1009 an hour early… time they’ll need to persuade their East River colleagues that it’s o.k. to run on the same time as those East Cost elites.
The Gregorian calendar is a ridiculous anachronism.
How does something called the ‘the christian calendar’ still exist in secular societies? Because 13 is not only a prime number and mark of the devil, it corresponds to the number of women’s menses each year in a world where men still have control.
Winter solstice begins another new year for us pagans. It occurs Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 8:27 PM.
“East Cost elites” is a delicious typo, Cory.
Yes! Please make it happen.
Year round standard time or leave it alone.
When the sun reaches its zenith, set your clock to noon. Or when the full moon is at its highest point, set your clock to midnight. Man’s egocentrism shouldn’t go so far as to tinker with something nature decides. You cannot domesticate time, no matter what weird ideas you come up with to control everything.
Since we don’t want kids traveling to school in the dark, wouldn’t it make more sense and be much easier to change the time the school bell rings instead of artificially changing the time on the clock?
Politicians are the only animals dumb enough to tell the sun what time it is.
Kind regards,
David
Dec 21, 1976, is the anniversary of the biggest mistake I made in my life.
I’m for Daylight Saving Time year around! It is just downright stupid to do it as a state without the entire country doing the same. The confusion of SD being on a different time would be beyond insane for us South Dakotans and for others who do business in SD.
Is this just another politician who does not understand their role as an elected official and who believes their job is to appease every voter in their district?
I’m with Ms. Mammal. Time is with the sun, and civilized people of a certain age don’t eat breakfast before the sun rises no matter what time of the year. As long as the restaurants are open for first breakfasts, and stay open until dinner, the time really doesn’t matter unless you’re punching a clock or visiting your broker appointment, and even then as long as we’re all looking at the same watch, I say Bah to the whole mess. Just stop messing around with it and blow a horn to synchronize the town each day.
Griz, speaking of synchronizing the town each day our town’s maintenance man would blow the noon fire whistle at 11:55 am. When asked about blowing it early he said it gives everybody 5 minutes to wash up before going home for lunch.
In my hometown, the whistle blew at 7 AM, Noon, 1 PM 6 PM and 9 PM. Over time, children learned to estimate time pretty well, based on the whistles. If you had to know the time, you walked downtown (it was a small town) and looked at the clock on the bank. Life was simpler then, and there wasn’t much need for precise time…approximate time would serve you well. Perhaps we’ve become too regimented, too much like time slaves.