Nineteen states have already passed laws to stop changing their clocks twice a year, and not one of them can use those laws. Permanent daylight savings time is the single option federal law does not let a state choose for itself, and the bill that would change that has been sitting in a Senate committee since July.
On Kalshi, a federally regulated exchange where people buy and sell contracts tied to whether an event happens, the chance it gets done before Jan. 20, 2029 sits at 39 percent. The nearest deadline on that board, before Jan. 1, 2027, is priced at 7.
And nineteen is not really nineteen. Several of those state laws are written as dominoes, switching on only if a neighbor switches first, so even a yes vote in Washington would not move all of them at once.
The Numbers
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Permanent Daylight Savings Time Before Jan. 20, 2029 | 39% |
| Before Jan. 1, 2028 | 21% |
| Before Jan. 1, 2027 | 7% |
| States With Year-Round Daylight Savings Laws On The Books | 19 |
| House Vote On The Sunshine Protection Act, July 14, 2026 | 308-117 |
Kalshi, read at 11:26 a.m. ET on Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. The three deadlines are separate questions, not slices of one pie, so they do not add to 100. Nothing here is financial advice.
Nineteen States Are Finished. One Committee Is Not.
The state-level fight is over and almost nobody noticed. Florida went first in 2018, Maine and Texas became the most recent additions last year, and 19 states now have laws on the books that lock their clocks on daylight savings time the moment Congress says they may.
Under current federal law a state may opt into permanent standard time, which is what Hawaii and most of Arizona did. Permanent daylight savings time is simply outside a state's power to choose.
So the fight moved to the Senate, where it stopped moving. The House passed the bill 308-117 on July 14, 2026. The Senate received it July 15, read it twice and referred it to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and that is the last thing that happened to it.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told NBC News on July 14, "I just don't think we want a mandate, and that was tried once before and repealed, but we're looking at it," which commits him to nothing on floor timing. A senior Hill aide told NBC News in the same report that Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has kept his long-standing objection, would ask Thune not to schedule a vote, and blocked a fast-track attempt on an earlier version in October 2025.
Three things are worth watching before Nov. 1: a Commerce markup, a Thune scheduling remark, and Cotton dropping his objection.
Which States Actually Flip
The domino problem is worth walking through, because it is the reason the count in the headline overstates the effect.
Delaware followed Florida, then added that Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania must also go permanent, and none of them have, though bills remain alive in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Oregon, minus Malheur County, wrote its law to wait on California, where voters approved the change back in 2018 and the legislature never finished the job. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Idaho and Washington all built in similar conditions.
Meanwhile the date that is not in doubt arrives first: clocks fall back to standard time on Nov. 1, the earliest possible date daylight savings time can end. Nothing in the available sourcing spells out when the act would take effect if it passed, so treat any talk of a spring payoff as arithmetic rather than a reported fact.
Why The Price Is Still Under 40 Cents
This bill already died once in the other chamber. A version of the Sunshine Protection Act passed the Senate in 2022 and fizzled in the House, and in 2026 the roles are exactly reversed.
The argument keeps flipping because the witnesses keep flipping it. At an April 10, 2025 Senate Commerce hearing titled "If I Could Turn Back Time: Should We Lock The Clock?", Dr. Karin Johnson, testifying for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told senators, "The spring clock change to Daylight Savings Time is bad, but permanent Daylight Savings Time is worse," and pointed at the failed 1974 attempt. At the same hearing, National Golf Course Owners Association CEO Jay Karen said, "Sixty-four percent of our members support making Daylight Savings Time permanent," adding that afternoon and evening tee times generate about 40% more revenue than before-lunch hours.
The board's price chart, spanning December through September, shows all three lines rising sharply around July when the House voted, then giving part of that back into September while the Senate did nothing. Total trading volume is $124,757, which is a small market, so read it as a rough gauge rather than a verdict.
About The Numbers
A price of 39 cents on Kalshi means the market is pricing that outcome at about a 39% chance, and every percentage here comes from the market table stamped Monday, September 21, 2026, 11:26 AM ET. Each of the three market lines is a separate deadline question, so the 39%, 21% and 7% figures are not slices of one pie and do not add to 100. Total trading volume is the dollar value traded on that market to date, which is why $124,757 counts as thin. The 64% membership figure and the roughly 40% revenue figure are testimony from the National Golf Course Owners Association at the April 10, 2025 hearing, not independent measurements. The count of 19 states covers laws enacted through last year that are contingent on federal approval, and several of those also depend on neighboring states acting.
