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Comment by CalChris | Hacker News Reader

It passed 60-40. The legislature would be foolish to ignore the electorate's clear intent.

CA has only a single timezone, the Pacific Timezone.

I don't think the voters intent is clear. The question was whether the legislature should be able to make the change not whether they should. If I lived in California I would have voted to provide them the option but that doesn't necessarily mean I think they should. I would expect further debate around the subject at the time legislation is introduced.

Let's accept your premise that a vote for the referendum was in all cases a vote for the change. The referendum requires 2/3rds of the representatives of the people to vote to affect the change. It can certainly be argued that since this level of support was included in the referendum and the referendum itself failed to garner this level of support then the representatives should not vote for the change.

Yes, this is kind of the issue with a lot of things (props/measures) we get on the ballots. Some are worth a direct vote, others should be phrased in the way you're describing as "this is an issue we'd like you to take up, research, and debate".

I personally find it annoying that sometimes we end having to vote directly on things that really fall under the job of our representatives.

I think all democracies would benefit from referendums/petitions that simply force the legislature to put the issue up for debate/vote.

  The referendum requires 2/3rds of the representatives of the people to vote to affect the change

1) this wasn't a referendum. It was a Legislative Statute.

2) it needed only a simple majority.

3) California DST implementation has been in violation of CA law for decades. CA law has been late April to late September since 1949.

4) to actually change DST still requires an additional 2/3rds majority vote in BOTH houses of the Legislature in the same session.

Prop 7 was submitted to voters by the legislature, since they couldn't do what they wanted without permission from the voters, because the law setting DST policy was from the voters, not the legislature.

Of course, federal action is still needed, too.

Federal action is only needed if they choose to go with PDT year-round rather than PST.

Right, but permanent daylight time is the whole motivation; reading the history and analysis of AB 807 (which put this on the ballot) as it went through the legislature is instructive.

IANAL, but, I think they could also choose MST as a replacement without federal action (from some other comments I've read on the matter)

No, the feds set the zone boundaries; states can't switch zones without federal action.

There's been some suggestions that it might be easier for a state to get moved to a different zone rather than getting a permanent daylight exception (I think the former may be doable by regulation, while the latter definitely takes Congress.)

Time zones are set by the DOT, so any change like this likely requires federal action...

https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/procedure-moving-...

Now, not respecting Daylight Savings Time is another matter entirely, and I believe that California could decide to be permanently in PST w/o the approval of the DOT. What they can't do is change the dates for DST or decide to always observe it (which would effectively end up creating a new time zone).

https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/daylight-saving-t...

But that wouldn't make sense, as it would put California four hours behind EDT during the summer, adding to the problem rather than removing.

I'm not sure which "problem" you're referring to exactly, but I don't think it's the same problem that the supporters of this law are trying to solve.

  the law setting DST policy was from the voters

Absolutely correct; this law was set by Initiative Statute in 1949... and has been flouted for decades now.

If the law was obeyed, DST would still start in April and end in September.

They have PST and PDT, depending on which part of the year it is. :)

It is kind of funny that it passed by less than the required % of votes in the legislature, though.

   it passed by less than the required % of votes in the legislature

No, it only needed simple majority.

Foolishness from the California legislature? Nahhhhh.

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