Daylight saving time or standard — the Oregon Senate doesn’t much care which. Senators are just sick of twice-yearly clock changes and the disrupted sleep patterns that come with them.
Six years after approving a bill to usher in an everlasting daylight saving time that never came to pass, the chamber took a new tack on Tuesday. In an 18-11 vote, it passed Senate Bill 1038, which will tie the state’s temporal fate to its neighbors.
The bill would allow Oregon to remain on standard time year-round if both California and Washington make the same decision in the next 10 years.
The proposal also leaves open the possibility that Oregon would stick with year-round daylight saving time, a step lawmakers first approved in 2019. That would require support from Washington and California — and an act of Congress.
A large chunk of Malheur County that sits in the Mountain Time Zone would be unaffected.
“This bill gives us the highest chance of ditching the switch,” said state Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, the bill’s author, “but which switch to ditch is going to be up to entities outside of our control.”
Thatcher’s long, so far fruitless, quest to end clock changes has resulted in sometimes-heated debate on the subject in Salem over the years. Both daylight and standard time have committed partisans happy to let loose on lawmakers who don’t share their views.
“As soon as you put your mark in the sand, oh my god, the flood gates are torn down,” Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, said during Tuesday’s debate.
Last year, a proposal by Thatcher that might have made Oregon the only state on the West Coast to adopt permanent standard time failed after a deadlocked vote in the Senate, partly out of concern that Oregon would be out of sync with California and Washington.
This year’s bill, with its fidelity to Oregon’s neighbors, avoided the same fate.
Fans of the daylight saving approach say it leaves more time after work and school to enjoy the day. They argue later light cuts down on crime and creates safer evening commutes.
But during winter, the time standard can lead to even darker mornings, with the sun not rising until nearly 9 a.m. in Portland.
Backers of standard time say it most closely hews to the body’s natural clock and is better for sleep. They add that dark mornings under daylight saving are unsafe for school children.
But permanent standard time comes with its own odd outcome: far sunnier mornings. In Portland, a switch to permanent standard time would result in the sun rising as early as 4:21 a.m. in June.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone here who is having a barbecue or party at 4 a.m.,” said state Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland, who opposed SB 1038 because she believes permanent standard time would deprive the state of joy.
No senators spoke specifically in favor of a permanent standard time, but many agreed with the idea of syncing up with Oregon’s neighbors to the north and south.
The fact that the bill wouldn’t create any immediate change was another likely selling point. In Washington, a proposal to keep the state on standard time died this year without receiving a hearing.
“It doesn’t lock us into anything right now,” said state Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro, who supported the bill. “It says we’re going to look at how Oregon, Washington, California can work in alignment.”
The bill now moves to the House.
Copyright 2025 OPB.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.