Year-round time options advance, initiative changes considered

The Nebraska Legislature grappled Thursday with whether to move the state to either year-round daylight saving or standard time. And a public hearing was held on possible changes to the initiative process for putting proposals on the ballot.

Do you hate to “Spring ahead and Fall back?” Would you prefer year-round daylight saving time, or year-round standard time? Or would you like to keep things the way they are? In each case, members of the Nebraska Legislature have a potential answer for you, and that answer is “yes.”

At least that’s the way things stand now, after senators advanced two bills Thursday to change what time the state observes. The first, sponsored by Sen. Megan Hunt, would move Nebraska to year-round daylight saving time. In debate Tuesday, Hunt extolled the advantages.

“You have more daylight after work," she said. "So you know, in the fall when you set your clocks back, and then all of a sudden, it's really dark at night and you're leaving work and you're walking to your car in the dark, this does away with that. You have more daylight after work. You can go to your kids’ games, you can go play golf. You can go to restaurants and shops, and it's a better thing for the economy. It's a better thing for things like seasonal depression and just kind of the winter blues that you get when you don't have any sunlight."

But where Hunt saw a ray of sunshine, Sen. Dave Murman, sponsor of a competing bill to observe year-round standard time, saw darkness.

“Once people go through permanent daylight savings time year-round, when the kids have to get up and go to school in the dark in the winter time, when it's a lot colder, and of course, everybody has to go to work in the dark when it's a lot colder in the winter time, people quickly lose interest in permanent daylight savings time,” he said.

Murman cited an experiment with nationwide daylight saving time authorized by Congress that lasted only eight months in 1974.

Sen. Kathleen Kauth touted the advantages of year-round standard time.

“It's the flip flopping back and forth that makes us all a little bonkers, but also not being in alignment with how the sun is moving affects your body by causing the human body clock to be misaligned with the natural environment," she said. "Daylight savings time increases the risks to our physical health, mental well-being and public safety."

Kauth cited studies that show an increase in heart attacks and strokes in the weeks after the current twice-yearly time changes.

Sen. Rick Holdcroft spoke against making any changes. Holdcroft, a Navy veteran, said changing time twice a year is nothing compared to sailors travelling 4,500 miles across the Pacific and having to change time by an hour every three days.

“I'm going to vote no on both of these. I think we're fine the way we are, and we can change our clocks twice a year without too much trouble,” he said.

Sen. George Dungan took the opposite view, saying he is open to either Murman’s standard time bill, LB302, or Hunt’s daylight saving time bill, LB34.

“This debate is actually one we've been having for quite some time, and I don't think it's one that necessarily we need to figure out today, but I do think continuing both LB302, and Senator Hunt's prior bill to the next round of debate permits us to continue to have this conversation, to reach out to constituents and to do a little soul-searching over whether or not we do, in fact, want to turn back time,” he said.

Dungan was among a number of senators who voted for both of the conflicting bills. Hunt’s daylight saving time bill got first round approval on a vote of 29-13; Murman’s standard time bill advanced 28-9.

That pushes any resolution of the issue down the road to one of the remaining two rounds of debate. And even if lawmakers decide on a preference, any change would be contingent on the approval of four neighboring states, in the case of Murman’s bill, or three neighboring states plus Congress, in Hunt’s case. Colorado and Wyoming have already passed legislation endorsing year-round daylight saving time, so one more neighboring state would be required to do so. Similar legislation is pending in Iowa and Missouri.

Also Thursday, the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee held a public hearing on proposed changes to how Nebraska handles initiatives.

Currently, people who want to put a proposal on the ballot have two years to collect enough petition signatures, which must be submitted four months before the general election.

Under a state constitutional amendment proposed by Sen. Rita Sanders and supported by Secretary of State Robert Evnen, they would still have two years, but the deadline for submitting the signatures would be moved back to July of the previous year, 16 months year before the election.

Deputy Secretary of State Wayne Bena said the change is needed to allow county election officials more time to count signatures on the increasing number of ballot initiatives being proposed. He said 2024 showed the need for a change.

“Our election officials across the state were pushed to the absolute brink… Not only did we have one referendum, two initiative constitutional amendments, three initiatives, we had four candidate petitions as well for President of the United States and U.S. Senate. This was the most signatures we've ever passed through in the summer of a election year in the history of our state,” he said.

Spike Eickholt, representing ACLU Nebraska, opposed the earlier deadline, saying it would encourage voter apathy.

“If you're going to put something on the ballot and you're collecting signatures, it's difficult, as a practical matter, to sort of get citizen interest in something that's a year or two down the road… you're going to have other sort of political things come up in between the time of signature collection and the time when the voter is going to be voting on the issue. And that's something that this proposal would encourage,” he said.

If the Legislature were to approve the proposed deadline change, it would go before Nebraska voters for their approval in November of next year.

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