Constable: Fall back? Adding another hour to 2020 seems like punishment

The last thing any of us needs during this nightmarish debacle called 2020 is more time to writhe in the cruel pit of despair and lunacy we currently endure. If we could, most of us would fast-forward to the day after Election Day, or New Year's Day. Maybe Jan. 20, 2021, or even Jan. 20, 2025.

But the powers that be require us to turn back our clocks one hour on early Sunday morning, inflicting another hour of misery on our weary souls. Technically, we are just getting back the hour we lost on March 8, but that's not a fair exchange considering that was a pre-pandemic hour from a simpler time.

Originally hatched by the Germans during World War I as an idea to save energy, daylight saving time became a custom across the United States in 1918. We used it again during World War II. Congress officially took control of our clocks in 1966, when it passed the Uniform Time Act, which gave us six months of daylight saving time. That still forced us to “spring forward” one hour on March 8 of this year, and “fall back” one hour today.

“It's something that is really an antiquated idea,” says state Sen. Dan McConchie, a Hawthorn Woods Republican and co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to keep Illinois on daylight saving time all year long. Introduced by Sen. Andy Manar, a Democrat from downstate Bunker Hill, the bill grew out of a contest for high school students to suggest laws they wanted to see enacted.

“The kids actually came and testified,” says McConchie, who says he was impressed by their arguments and immediately signed on as a co-sponsor, as did Sen. Cristina Castro, an Elgin Democrat.

The Senate passed that bill by a 44-2 vote, but the effort stalled in the House in spite of similar arguments.

“When the system was set up, we were in a much different world than we are today,” says state Rep. Jonathan Carroll, a Democrat from Northbrook. He is a co-sponsor of the House bill championed by East Dundee Republican Allen Skillicorn that would keep Illinois on daylight saving time all year.

“We have a good, diverse group,” says Carroll. Other co-sponsors of the House bill include Emanuel Chris Welch, a Westchester Democrat, two more Democrats and two Republicans.

Getting Democrats and Republicans to agree on anything these days seems about as likely as you having attended a crowded Halloween party last night where the fun was bobbing for apples. Staying on daylight saving time all year makes sense. Changing the clocks twice a year doesn't save energy in an era where people stream videos of conspiracies, celebrities and cats 24/7, and a report by Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities showed fatal accidents increase on the March Monday after our “spring forward” robs us of an hour of sleep.

But it's not that simple.

“Federal law limits our ability to be able to do it on our own,” McConchie says.

In 2019, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, championed the pleasant-sounding Sunshine Protection Act, which would have eliminated the twice-yearly time changes. This September, he tweaked the legislation to make it a one-year-only attempt to “ease the burden” of the “disruptions the COVID-19 pandemic has placed into our daily lives.”

But apparently, most legislators would rather change the time on their microwave ovens and coffee-makers twice a year than change the time rules once. You can spend your entire extra hour just changing the old-fashioned clocks in your home and searching online to see if turning the hands backward will ruin your hand-me-down grandfather clock.

“Everything must evolve, and this is one of those things that should evolve,” Carroll says.

Saturday night's sunset at 5:45 p.m. ended a day with temperatures in the middle 50s. This afternoon, when temperatures struggle to break into the low 40s, offers a different picture, thanks to the end of daylight saving time.

“It gets dark around 4:30 because of this,” McConchie says of earlier sunsets.

Sponsoring flu-shot clinics last weekend, McConchie says he talked to a pharmacist who told him that antibiotics generally are the hot prescriptions this time of year. This year, it's anti-depressants.

Of course, we have lots of reasons to be depressed these days. Legislators have bigger issues than clock settings.

“But it's a conversation we should be having,” Carroll says. “I'd like to see us move on this, as soon as we deal with COVID.”