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I've lived and worked in Iron Mountain for 47 years, and every winter I watch our kids lose the daylight. Here on Central time it's dark by 4:15 p.m. in December. A child gets off the bus and there's no light left for sledding, skating or a game in the yard. Four months indoors in front of a screen isn't good for anybody's health or mood.
The Sunshine Protection Act would fix that by keeping us on Daylight Saving Time all year. The U.S. House passed it 308 to 117 this summer. It's stuck in the Senate because one senator, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, keeps blocking a vote.
The usual objection is dark winter mornings, and in Michigan that's a fair point. But school districts can start later in the winter. No school board can give a child daylight after school.
Evening light matters for everyone else, too. Teenagers drive home from practice and after-school jobs in the dark, during the busiest traffic of the day. Working hunters lose their weekday hunts from November on. And all of us drive home at dusk, right when deer are crossing the roads, in a state with some of the most deer crashes in the country.
Nearly all of us are tired of changing the clocks twice a year, too.
I'd urge readers to call Michigan's U.S. Sens. Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin and ask them to push for a vote. Let's lock the clock.