A Tennessee lawmaker wants to put an end to the twice-a-year clock shuffle that most residents dread. State Rep. Chris Todd, a Republican from Madison County, has introduced House Bill 1300, a measure that would lock Tennessee on standard time permanently and eliminate daylight saving time altogether.
If the bill passes and gets signed into law, Tennesseans would stop changing their clocks starting March 14, 2027.
The history behind daylight saving time goes back more than a century. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Standard Time Act of 1918, originally framed as a way to conserve energy and stretch out evening daylight. Congress reversed course the very next year, overriding Wilson’s veto and leaving it up to individual states. The practice came back during World War II and eventually became a standardized national policy under the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
Under current federal law, states can choose to stay on standard time permanently, but permanently adopting daylight saving time requires an act of Congress. Right now, only Hawaii and most of Arizona skip the clock changes entirely, with the exception of the Navajo Nation.
Tennessee has flirted with this issue before. In 2019, the state legislature passed a law that would move Tennessee to permanent daylight saving time, but only if Congress gave states the green light to do so. That federal approval never came, leaving things exactly as they were.
Now the conversation has shifted. Rather than waiting on Congress to allow permanent daylight saving time, Rep. Todd’s bill takes the path that is already legally available: locking the state on standard time for good.
House Bill 1300 cleared the House Public Service Committee and is now headed to the State and Local Government Committee, moving one step closer to potentially becoming law.