This is the sixth year I have been blogging about this, and in all that time I have never really asked you, the reader, for anything.
- I have never, not one time, asked anyone for money for this cause.
- I’ve never sold any “merch” as the kids like to call it.
- There are no pop-ups begging you to join my email list. (I only added an email list last year, and have only sent, I think, three emails. If you would like to, you can sign up here.)
Just yesterday, however, I decided to do something that I have openly mocked in the past, and that is to start a petition.
I have seen dozens of these things, and they have all done the same amount of good: Zilch.
But people like signing them because it feels like you are doing something.
Well, I decided to merge that desire that people have to do something with a petition that might actually make a dent.
You see, right now there is one person who is blocking progress on #LockTheClock.
That is Sen. Roger Wicker from the great state of Mississippi. He is also the chairman of the Commerce Committee in the U.S. Senate.
For reasons that only historians can love, all of the clock management happens through the Department of Transportation, and that department fall under the purview of the Commerce Committee.
Right now there is a bill in front of that committee called the Sunshine Protection Act. It has not yet gotten a hearing.
Now when I was a kid and I learned how a bill became a law, I never imagined that a bill could get introduced and then NOT get a hearing. I mean, if a senator cares enough to officially submit a bill, it seems like a committee should have to at least look at it. If it loses a vote, fine, but it should be able to get a vote, right?
Well, that is not how it works. It turns out that a bill only gets a hearing when the chair of the committee says it gets a hearing.
That’s where the act is sitting right now, waiting for a hearing.
Now, I don’t think that Sen. Wicker is actually against this idea. I mean, consider:
- He is a Republican, but the bill is sponsored by another Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio.
- He is from Mississippi, but a co-sponsor of the bill is the other senator from Mississippi, Sen. Hyde-Smith.
- He can’t be thinking that people hate it because so many states are now specifically asking for it, and polls are always really clear that people hate the clock-changing.
- He served in the Mississippi legislature, which now has nine different bills basically all in line with the Sunshine Protection Act.
I think he just doesn’t know about it.
So, I want to help him learn about it. Hence the petition. I will personally deliver all these signature to him, his staff and anyone else that might help him to decide to give this bill a hearing.
That is why for the first time I am genuinely asking you to do one thing that will not take much time, and add your name to this petition:
Get The Sunshine Protection Act a Hearing
One small note: That petition is hosted on change.org. A thing I didn’t know when I put the petition there is that change.org asks for money after you sign. You do NOT need to give money. That all goes to change.org, which is actually a for-profit company. You can if you want, but don’t think the money comes to me. As always, I am not asking for donations.
Thanks for reading, and thanks especially for signing that, and then sharing it with everyone you know. With this one thing, maybe we can get this bill a hearing, and the voice of the sleep deprived around the country will finally be heard.