The House voted 308, 117 on Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent across the country, sending the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 to a Senate that passed a nearly identical measure unanimously four years ago but never saw it become law. President Trump has backed the bill and pledged to sign it.
The lopsided margin, with only 22 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting no, makes this one of the most bipartisan pieces of legislation to clear the lower chamber this Congress. If the Senate follows through, Americans would stop changing their clocks twice a year, a ritual that polls show the vast majority want gone.
Rep. Vern Buchanan, the Florida Republican who introduced the bill and has championed permanent daylight saving time since 2018, framed the vote as a long-overdue correction. The Washington Examiner reported that Buchanan has pushed versions of this legislation through multiple sessions of Congress.
"Floridians and Americans across the country are tired of the biannual time change, and the evidence is clear that permanent daylight saving time can improve public health, reduce traffic accidents, lower crime and encourage more outdoor activity. Ending the clock change is a commonsense reform that will improve everyday life for millions of Americans."
That is not a fringe position. Only 12 percent of Americans support the current system of switching clocks twice a year, Newsmax noted, citing a 2025 AP-NORC poll. The question has never been whether Americans want the change, it has been whether Congress could get out of its own way long enough to deliver it.
The president weighed in on Truth Social, making clear he considers the legislation a priority. Trump argued the bill matters because of the money wasted on the biannual switch, writing that it "is so important in that Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks."
He went further in a second post, as The Hill reported:
"I am going to work very hard to see The Sunshine Protection Act signed into Law. It's time that people can stop worrying about the 'Clock,' not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production. It will also be a very nice WIN for the Republican Party. Take it!"
The White House has called the legislation a "popular, commonsense reform," and advisers have recommended the president sign it if it reaches his desk, AP News reported.
That kind of explicit presidential backing matters. The bill's legislative path has been cleared at every prior stage, it sailed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee 48, 1 in May and passed the House Rules Committee 6, 4, but earlier versions died because of institutional inertia, not because anyone could muster a serious policy case against them.
The Senate unanimously approved a similar measure in 2022. That bill then stalled in the House, one of those Washington absurdities where a chamber votes yes and the other simply never bothers to act. Now the roles are reversed. The House has done its part. The question is whether the Senate will move.
There are reasons for cautious optimism. The Washington Examiner reported that companion legislation in the Senate already has 18 bipartisan co-sponsors. And roughly 20 states have passed trigger laws that would enact permanent daylight saving time the moment a president signs federal authorization, a sign of just how broad the demand is at the state level.
The bill also includes a practical concession: states could opt out if their legislatures act before the bill's enactment date, preserving a degree of local control that should ease federalism concerns.
But not every senator is on board. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has warned that permanent daylight saving time would "push winter sunrises to an absurdly late hour," raising a practical concern about children commuting to school in darkness. Cotton argued that "kids would either walk to school in the pitch black or schools would have to push back start times." That is a legitimate safety question, and it deserves a straight answer from the bill's supporters before a Senate vote.
The broader legislative picture in this Congress favors action. The House has shown it can move major bills with strong margins, as it did with the reconciliation bill funding ICE and Border Patrol through 2029, and the Senate has demonstrated a willingness to hand the president wins on contested issues.
The case for permanent daylight saving time is not new. Supporters have cited the same basket of benefits for years: fewer traffic accidents during evening commutes, a modest reduction in certain categories of crime, and a boost to industries that depend on after-work daylight, tourism, outdoor recreation, retail.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Florida Republican, put it in economic terms. "In my home state of Florida where tourism is a cornerstone of our economy, having more predictable daylight hours is a practical improvement that benefits workers, businesses and visitors alike," he said, as Fox News reported.
Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has also backed the bill, giving it genuine bipartisan credentials that go beyond a token crossover vote or two.
The bill's momentum reflects a broader dynamic in this Congress: when Trump signals clear support for a measure that already has wide public backing, the legislative machinery tends to move. The president has notched wins in the Senate on contested foreign policy questions and has shown a willingness to use his political capital on issues that might seem modest but resonate with voters who are tired of Washington ignoring common-sense fixes.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, summed up the political reality. "Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of this policy and want to end the practice of springing forward and falling back," Guthrie said, according to Fox News.
The 2022 episode is worth remembering. The Senate voted unanimously, every single senator, to make daylight saving time permanent. Then the House let the bill die without a floor vote. No dramatic opposition. No principled stand. Just the slow suffocation that Washington specializes in.
That failure is a useful reminder that popular legislation with bipartisan support can still vanish into the procedural fog if no one with real authority forces a vote. This time, the dynamic is different. The president has publicly committed to signing the bill. The House has delivered a 308, 117 margin. The New York Post noted that 19 states have already passed their own legislation to lock in permanent daylight saving time the moment federal law allows it.
The Senate has no good excuse to sit on this one. Cotton's concerns about winter sunrise times deserve a hearing, but they did not stop the Senate from voting unanimously four years ago. If senators who backed the 2022 version now reverse course, they should explain why.
The broader pattern of Trump's legislative dealmaking this session suggests the White House will not let this one drift. When the president publicly stakes his name on a bill and calls it a win for his party, the pressure on Senate leadership to schedule a vote becomes difficult to ignore.
The bill now sits with the Senate. No vote has been scheduled. Eighteen co-sponsors and a companion bill suggest the votes are likely there, but the 2022 experience proves that votes on paper and votes on the floor are two different things.
If the Senate acts and the president signs, the practical effect would be felt most sharply in winter. Sunsets would come later, but so would sunrises, in some northern states, the sun would not rise until well after 8 a.m. in December and January. Schools, employers, and commuters would adjust. Whether that trade-off is worth it is a fair debate, but it is one the public has already settled in overwhelming numbers.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have shown they can manage their caucus on votes that align with the president's priorities. Tuesday's margin, with fewer than two dozen GOP defections, suggests the party is largely unified behind this particular piece of common-sense reform.
Americans have been asking Washington to stop the clock-changing ritual for years. The House finally listened. Now the Senate gets to decide whether it will act, or whether it will repeat the 2022 vanishing act and prove, once again, that the simplest fixes are the hardest ones for Congress to deliver.