By Johnny Kincaid
It’s that dreaded day, the day that everyone blames for their tiredness and fatigue, because last night, we “lost an hour of sleep.” It’s time change and we sprang forward an hour overnight. In days of old, we would have spent most of the day today resetting every clock in the house, office, and car.
But all of that could be ending in Indiana. Republican State Senator Tyler Johnson introduced a bill to the Senate in January that would end Daylight Saving Time. If Senate Bill 24 passes, it would take effect on July 1st, 2025. After we revert back to Standard Time in the fall, we will lock our clocks down in Standard Time year-round.
Hoosiers have had quite a bit of difficulty determining what timezone Indiana should be in.
Back in the 1880s, the sun determined the time. High noon was a reference to the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky.
The one one industry that really needed to operate on a consistent schedule was the railroads. But each railroad set it’s clock differently and the clock at the train depot was often different from the clock on the courthouse.
In 1968, the Department of Transportation proposed a compromise in which most of Indiana would be on Eastern Standard Time year-round, while the Gary and Evansville areas would remain on Central time and follow daylight time in the summer.
Many Hoosiers remember the days of Indianapolis and Evansville being on the same time for half of the year.
For more than 30 years, the system established in 1972 remained largely unchanged. But in 2005 Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels made DST part of his economic plan, arguing that “Indiana Time” was bad for the state’s economy because businesses outside of the state couldn’t keep track of what time it was in Indiana.
A DST bill sponsored by Rep. Gerald Torr, R-Carmel, moved through the 2005 legislative session. Although the Senate passed the bill by a solid majority, twice during the session the House voted it down, but by margins too slim to defeat it for the session. On April 28, 2005, with two days left in the session, the bill came up for a final vote and seemed to have have been defeated 49-51. But as the speaker held the vote open two legislators changed their minds and the measure passed.
