Time zones in the US are a matter for the sovereign states, not the federal government.

There already exists at least one US member state that doesn’t practice DST: Arizona.

Interestingly, this is an enumerated power under the U.S. Constitution. Article 1 section 8 explicitly grants Congress the power to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat...

Thanks for the pointer. It seems (if the federal courts do in fact interpret this clause to include DST/time zone issues), that I was wrong.

Not exactly, they do not have complete control. States can choose their timezone, they can choose whether to adopt DST or not. They cannot choose to switch to DST all year round though.

Edit:

http://timezonereport.com/?page_id=313

The bottom line here is that a state (or other political subdivision — see the Wayne County, KY reference below) can only:

- Opt out of DST

- If not opted out of DST, you must advance an hour starting on the second Sunday of March and ending on the first Sunday in November.

- Petition the Secretary of the Department of Transportation and request a change of time zone designation.

Can't they just move to the neighboring time zone and not adopt DST? (i.e. If California wants permanent summer time, they can switch to MST and sync up with Arizona ("America/Phoenix"))

See my edit, they have to petition to change their time zone.

Bit confusing as you open the post with "States can choose their timezone"

Texas has, in recent years, changed the dates at which they adopted DST more than once (it was something to do with Halloween trick-or-treating and candy lobbyists).

Sorry, what?

edit: to answer my own question: there are some rumors about candy manufacturers influencing legislators to implement dst after Halloween so more children would partake and they would make more money. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with Texas in particular and might not be true at all. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

https://www.romper.com/p/the-crazy-weird-reason-daylight-sav...

No this was like almost 10 years ago. As I recall, it lasted for only one year: http://www.kltv.com/story/11417485/halloween-and-daylight-sa...

Why not? Where does it say that?

See edit.

This was one of my favorite things about living in Arizona. Leaving work when it's dark out is no fun.

Even then the states don't really have control. Me and my friends can decide to do whatever we want. We listen to the government because it's hard to coordinate and no one else has stepped up. No one really has any control.

In practice, yes they do have control. If Oregon decides tomorrow to officially give up DST, then everyone in Oregon would start using that new time zone.

Not sure what point you’re making other than that in general, the existence of states depends on people recognizing them and following their rules, which is true but doesn’t have much to do with DST specifically.

my point is - unlike most rules though, there is no law forcing you to follow what the state decides for timing.

it’s really not a state vs federal thing because neither enforces it.

sure youd need to follow i it for state related hours, but that’s it.