Introduced Version, House Bill 1034 This bill repeals the legislation Indiana passed way back when that exempts Indiana from the Daylight Savings Time provisions. So, knowing what it does requires some knowledge of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s regulations on daylight savings time. I don’t have that.
But, my best guess is that Indiana is in the Eastern time zone. USDOT doesn’t allow the state to be split, otherwise, some of Indiana would more naturally be in the Central Time Zone. In fact, the legislation being repealed says that the part of Indiana that would fall in the Central Time Zone would observe daylight savings time if the state could be split.
If this passes, then folks in Gary and East Chicago won’t be able to share Chicago’s time, and folks in Covington and Attica will find that in April, it won’t be getting light out until 9 a.m. or so and won’t be getting dark out until 10pm in June. On the other hand, I guess the folks in the eastern part of the state will be happier. This has been the basic problem with daylight savings time legislation in the past. The state splits about 50/50 as to whether to have it or not. Most folks who think about it have a fairly strong opinion one way or the other. The folks who are in favor of it are divided between Eastern time and Central time, so they have been losing the fight for decades. Now, we have one party rule and a governor who apparently thinks it’s a good idea, so maybe it has a chance.
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