The battle over Americans’ clocks reemerged in an unlikely way over the weekend, with President Donald Trump picking a fight with one of his top allies over the issue.There have been many fights in Congress over the nearly two years that Trump has been in office for his second term that either ended in partisan victory or gloriously fizzled out, but one has quietly gone onto the shelf despite his pressure on Republicans to do something about it.And that fight is over allowing states to voluntarily observe Daylight Saving Time year-round to effectively do away with the twice-a-year ritual of changing clocks.It’s a popular issue with voters and the president, and there’s a bill that passed the House this summer to enact the change.
But it’s a policy issue that has divided both sides of the aisle and ground to a halt in the upper chamber.TRUMP URGES SENATE TO PASS BILL MAKING DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME PERMANENT AFTER OVERWHELMING HOUSE VOTEPresident Donald Trump wants to make daylight saving permanent, but a geographic coalition of northern versus southern states are in a heated debate over the merits of the change, which spells doom for the bill.(Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images; Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)Sen.
Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has been one of the more vocal opponents of the bill, vowing to block any attempts to fast-track it on the floor.That resistance earned him a Truth Social post from Trump, who over the weekend shared his personal phone number in a bid to pressure the lawmaker to change his stance on Daylight Saving Time."Almost everybody wants "The Sunshine Protection Act" to pass, except for Tom Cotton," Trump said.
"To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself."Cotton responded, and noted that Congress has tackled Daylight Saving Time before, only to roll back the change shortly after."No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Co...