Beat the clock: The politics of daylight saving time in New Hampshire

Timothy Horrigan has been trying to kill the clock-changing ritual for years now, and every year the New Hampshire legislature finds a way to let it die on the calendar instead. That's not an accident. This is one of the rare issues where the public actually agrees with itself, poll after poll shows most people just want to pick a time and stick with it, and yet lawmakers keep treating it like a third rail.

Part of the holdup is real: New Hampshire can't just flip a switch without Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine doing the same, or you end up with a state that's out of sync with its own commuter routes and TV schedules. Federal law also boxes states in on permanent daylight saving specifically, so even a state that wants to act has its hands somewhat tied by Washington. That's a legitimate practical snag, not an excuse to do nothing for a decade.

What's frustrating is watching a genuinely bipartisan, low-stakes fix get strangled by exactly the kind of institutional inertia we complain about on bigger issues. Nobody's out here defending the joy of losing an hour of sleep every March. Horrigan isn't pushing some radical agenda, he's pushing something farmers, parents, and night-shift workers have wanted forever. If Concord can't move on this, it says something about how hard it is to get anything simple done once it has to pass through enough committees.

At some point New England states need to stop waiting for a federal green light and start coordinating regionally, the way they already do on plenty else. Small government types should like that idea. Let states solve their own clock problem instead of waiting on Congress to bless it.