Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) defended his opposition to a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, pointing out that “Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before” and has ended up repealing it.
In a post on X, Cotton pointed out that “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark.” Cotton’s post came after President Donald Trump shared Cotton’s cell phone number in a post on Truth Social and encouraged people to call Cotton and urge him to support The Sunshine Protection Act.
“No one likes changing the clock, me included, but Congress has enacted permanent Daylight Savings Time multiple times before and repealed it each time once Americans experienced absurdly late sunrises in the winter,” Cotton explained. “Arkansans don’t want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I’ll always put Arkansas first.”
In another post on Truth Social, Trump blasted Cotton for holding up The Sunshine Protection Act in the Senate, after the U.S. House voted 308-117 to pass it in July.
“If Tom Cotton were putting Arkansas first, he would give them an extra hour of daylight and, more importantly, they wouldn’t have to run all over their houses, farms, work places, and everywhere else, twice a year, having to change their Clocks, and often forgetting to do so,” Trump said. “That is really putting Arkansas FIRST, and I know, because, unlike Tom, I won that Great State, three times, and by almost 40 points!”
Trump continued to state that “the House approved, long ago, ‘The Sunshine Protection Act,’ by a very Bipartisan Vote, 308 to 117” and added that the bill “has been held up in the Senate, a place where things go to die, by Tom Cotton, for months!”
“The reason that it was terminated in the past was that certain Congressmen and Senators, from long ago, used it as a ‘negotiating chip’ for far more important Legislation — And they got plenty!” Trump continued. “Everybody loved it, but it was given up in order to get bigger, better, and more consequential ‘things.’”
