UPDATE: Daylight saving time exemption bill fails in the House
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UPDATE:
The Idaho House of Representatives killed the daylight saving time exemption bill Friday. The bill failed with 15 votes in favor and 55 against.
Rep. Christy Zito, R-Hammet, sponsored the bill.
ORIGINAL STORY (published 5:45 p.m. Thursday):
BOISE — A proposed bill to kill daylight saving time in Idaho is advancing its way through the legislature.
Rep. Christy Zito, R-Hammet, proposed a bill that, if passed, would exempt Idaho from federal daylight savings laws reverting Idaho to Standard Time. The bill is headed for the House floor for a vote Friday after the House State Affairs Committee recommended passing the bill.
“I get quite a few calls in the spring and in the fall when we change, especially in the spring,” Zito said about her decision to sponsor the bill. “It’s just kind of grown out of the natural course of things. And it’s not the first time the bill has been presented.”
In 2015 House Majority Leader Rep. Mike Moyle, R-Star, presented a bill that would have made daylight saving time year-round. He eventually withdrew the bill after it was made clear that year-round daylight saving is against federal law.
According to United States code states may either adopt Daylight Saving Time, advancing the clock one hour between the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. Or states may exempt themselves from Daylight Saving Time entirely.
Where Moyle’s failed bill would have advanced the clocks by one hour for the entire year against federal law, Zito’s bill would exempt Idaho from daylight saving time.
Zito said she has received some opposition to the bill, but not much.
“There are people who feel like you’re stealing an hour of daylight from them. But, you know, you’re really not. There’s just so many hours of daylight no matter what. God’s in control of that,” Zito told EastIdahoNews.com.
Zito said if the House approves the bill Friday, it will head to the Senate State Affairs Committee.
Arizona and Hawaii are the only states that do not observe daylight saving time.
Interested in learning about the history of daylight saving time? Check out Rett Nelson’s Good Question, Why do we observe daylight saving time?