Californians gain an hour by turning their clocks backward one hour come the first Sunday of November, and lose an hour on the second Sunday of March. But Proposition 7 aimed to change that.

What it does

Prop 7 in California’s 2018 ballot aimed to follow Arizona and Hawaii in observing a year-round standard time—no more clock changes.

Daylight saving time was permanently put in place from 1942-1945 to save energy during WWII. Now, in most of the United States daylight saving time occurs from March through October, and standard time during winter months to allow for lighter mornings.

Pros

Democrats support the YES vote, stating in the official argument on ballotpedia for Prop 6 that “stroke risks increase 8% when we change our clocks. For cancer patients the stroke risk increases 25% and for people over age 65 stroke risk goes up 20%. All because we disrupt sleep patterns.”

The medical issues that have been found to arise because of the simple one-hour time change prompted the desire for a change in the system. 

However, even with a majority YES vote, the question would be in the hands of the California Legislature who need a two-thirds majority vote to pass the law.

Cons

On the other hand, there was a strong opposition to this proposition. Many believed that “avoiding these transitions is not worth the confusion with other states’ times, and the months of dark mornings we’ll have to endure if we have permanent Daylight Saving Time.”

The NO voters claimed that there is a convenience factor thanks to daylight saving, having lighter mornings in the winter for morning joggers and students getting ready for school. 

There is no need to fix what isn’t broken, and the opposition sees no issues with daylight saving time the way it is.

Voting results

The proposition ended up being approved, but it is on hold as of now because it has moved onto the California Legislature to vote on.

Although the point of propositions is to give the people the opportunity to help make decisions on laws and reforms passed, in cases like these the educated assemblies get to make the final decision.

Because of this, it may take more time for a law like this to be put into place, so for now we still have to make sure our clocks are set forward on Sunday, November 1st.