Honeyford’s Daylight Saving Measure Clears Senate

On Tuesday, the Washington state Senate approved legislation, with nearly unanimous bipartisan support, allowing voters to ask Congress to keep our state on daylight saving time forever.  Sunnyside senator Jim Honeyford said the switch between daylight and standard times not only does not help the farming community, it hurts Washingtonians as a whole.

“With the time change, we find there’s more auto accidents, more heart attacks, more strokes and children don’t do as well on tests in school.”

Honeyford is confident a majority of Washingtonians would jump at the opportunity to no longer spring-forward and fall back.

“I had a lot of people that wanted to be able to vote on it, but I would say there’s probably 20:1 people in the e-mails and letters that I’ve gotten, that favor staying on daylight savings time.”

The proposal still has a long way to go.  If approved by Washington voters, Federal lawmakers would need to authorize the state remaining on Daylight Saving year round.  Legislation that cleared the House earlier this session does not require a vote by the people and sends the issue directly to Congress.

The two chambers will now try to work out the differences.

If you have a story idea for the Washington Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail gvaagen@cherrycreekradio.com