Daylight saving time chaos in Michigan

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Arizona, ballot, bowling, Central Daylight Time, Central Standard Time, Chamber of Commerce, Court of Appeals, daylight saving time, daylight time, Detroit, Eastern Daylight Time, election, Farm Bureau, governor, Hawaii, Indiana, legislature, Ludington Daily News, Market Opinion Research, Michigan, Ohio, petitions, polls, Raymond Dzendzel, referendum, Retailers Association, standard time, State Board of Canvassers, Supreme Court, surveys, theatre, Uniform Time Act, Upper Peninsula, US, Wisconsin

With the Uniform Time Act of 1966, the US states had to decide if they were going to have daylight saving or stick to standard time all year. Further to the extract from my book on daylight saving time, The Great Daylight Saving Time Controversy, at https://chrispearce52.wordpress.com/2018/02/04/daylight-saving-time-saga-indiana-1966-1972/, here’s an extract on daylight saving time chaos in Michigan during the same period. …

In Michigan, a bill to stay on standard time was passed by both houses and signed by the governor in March 1967. However, daylight saving supporters, including senator Raymond Dzendzel, the Chamber of Commerce and the Retailers Association, set out to obtain the 123,100 petition signatures needed (equal to 5 per cent of votes for governor at the last election) to force a referendum. If they were successful, the state would have daylight time for two summers before the scheme was put to the vote at the election in November 1968. Opponents of daylight saving, namely the state Farm Bureau, theatre owners and bowling alley proprietors, tried to block the petitions by taking the matter to the Court of Appeals. But the move was ruled to be premature. By late April, Dzendzel had collected nearly 200,000 signatures, suspending the state Act for standard time. But farming, bowling and theatre interests went back to court. The State Board of Canvassers delayed certifying the petitions due to suits pending in three courts. After a protracted battle, the Supreme Court handed the issue back to the canvassers.

Objectors to daylight saving checked a sample of signatures and found 41 per cent to be invalid, reducing the number of acceptable names to less than 120,000, and took the issue back to court again. The final number of valid signatures was determined to be about 125,000, enough for the switch to daylight time to be made on 14 June 1967. As a Michigan newspaper put it: “After months of debate in the Legislature, bills, amendments, court decisions, motions, appeals, referendum calls and other legal gobbledygook, Michigan today was an hour faster than the sun.” (Kit Kincaid, “Daylight saving time comes to state, some UP communities are holding out”, The Ludington Daily News, Ludington, Michigan, United States, 14 June 1967, p. 1). Hotel patrons weren’t impressed as the change meant an hour’s less drinking time. Nor were Upper Peninsula residents happy when they had to go from Central Standard Time to Eastern Daylight Time, a difference of two hours, pushing sunset back to as late as nearly 10 p.m. in western parts of the state. A dozen or more Upper Peninsula counties disregarded the law and used Central Daylight Time. Proponents of standard time pursued further but unsuccessful court action over the petitions.

The lead up to the referendum in November 1968 pitted businesses, city workers, participants in outdoor activities and easterners against farmers, parents, theatres, indoor sports, bars and westerners. Preliminary results indicated that out of about 2.8 million votes, daylight time won by some 25,000 and supporters were rejoicing. More than two weeks later, the final tally showed a win for standard time by just 413 votes and suddenly the other side in the confrontation was celebrating. Given the closeness, the Board of Canvassers decided on a recount, finding tabulation errors in several counties, uncompleted returns and uncounted absentee votes. The board’s revised figures had standard time winning by 1,501 votes.

Dzendzel and several business groups sought a citizen recount at a cost of $5 a precinct, refunded if the result was reversed. They checked about 2,700 of Michigan’s approximately 5,600 precincts in 80 of 83 counties and found many errors of various descriptions, prompting calls for a review of vote counting processes and staff training. Supporters and opponents of daylight saving anxiously followed media reports of the progress of the count. By 1 January 1969, the lead for standard time was down to 1,096 votes, reduced further to 550 by 29 January. The final difference was 488 votes, which meant that 50.01 per cent of people who voted chose standard time and 49.99 per cent daylight time although less than half the adult population cast a vote. Fast time supporters didn’t give up. Two law students took the matter to the Appeals Court. Also, a bill was introduced to rescind the standard time law.

When nearly the whole country began daylight saving on 27 April 1969, almost all of Michigan stayed on standard time. A few communities south-west of Detroit along the border with Ohio either changed to daylight time or had businesses, schools or churches that started an hour earlier. The Upper Peninsula was to shift from Central to Eastern time, and while three counties didn’t change, the others welcomed the move as they would be on the same time as Wisconsin.

A drive for petition signatures in late 1969 and into 1970 to force another ballot later that year was led by Dzendzel and there were more bills, hearings and court cases. Petitions now had to carry over 200,000 signatures as the threshold had been raised from 5 per cent to 8 per cent of votes for governor at the last election. But a problem over the legality of petition submission dates was tied up in court and time ran out for a public vote in 1970. Proponents struggled to get enough signatures and resorted to other means. A House vote on initiative petitions failed by 60 votes to 46, ensuring a referendum. In another move, the Supreme Court validated a request for the legislature to overturn its 1967 decision for the state to have standard time or else the daylight saving question would be on the November 1972 ballot. The legislature took no action.

Both sides kept pressing their views before the 1972 vote and the daylight saving advocates seemed to be winning the race according to polls. Market Opinion Research surveys found that the proportion of Michigan residents who wanted daylight time increased from 44 per cent in August to 49 per cent in September and 53 per cent in October. On election day, 55 per cent of people voted for daylight saving although the figure for the Upper Peninsula was only 27 per cent. After four years on standard time, the state joined most of the nation in putting clocks forward on 29 April 1973. That left Arizona, Hawaii and most of Indiana as the only states with year round standard time.

(end of extract)

The Great Daylight Saving Time Controversy is available at Amazon, Kobo and Apple.

Wayne Swan to retire from politics

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1930s Depression, Australia, business, China, Coalition, debt, deficit, economics, economy, Euromoney, expenditure, exports, GDP, GFC, global financial crisis, government, Joseph Stiglitz, Labor Party, Liberal Party, Lilley, Malcolm Fraser, mining boom, National Party, New York, OECD, Paul Keating, politics, recession, revenue, stimulus packages, treasurer, unemployment, Wayne Swan, world economy

Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley in the Australian House of Representatives since 1998 (and from 1993 to 1996), has announced that he will not stand at the next election due in 2019. It was Swan who was treasurer during the global financial crisis (GFC) period, the world’s worst economic downturn since the 1930s Depression. Australia was affected quite severely by the GFC as was nearly every country.

Some on the right still mistakenly believe that the GFC was largely confined to advanced economies in the northern hemisphere and that it only lasted a short time. Australia’s GDP growth fell from about 4% to 1% and revenue fell from 25-26% of GDP pre-GFC to a low of 21.4% in 2010-11 and it still hasn’t recovered. This is why we have had deficits for the last nine years and an increase in government debt.

Swan and the Labor Party government came up with two stimulus packages worth $52 billion, most of it in 2009, to keep us out of recession. They had to be put in place in a hurry due to the collapsing world economy and weren’t perfect but they did the trick and kept us out of recession. Many on the right think that the mining boom and exports to China saved us from recession. But gross value added from mining grew by about $3 billion and exports to China by about $9 billion in 2009. Each 1% of GDP at the time was about $14 billion. So with growth falling to about 1%, the stimulus packages were quite clearly the only thing that kept us out of recession.

Nobel prize winning professor of economics Joseph Stiglitz of New York said: “You were lucky to have, probably, the best designed stimulus package of any of the countries, advanced industrial countries, both in size and in design, timing and how it was spent – and I think it served Australia well.” He also said that such programs are “preferable to the waste of human and capital resources that would have resulted if there was no stimulus”. Most countries had stimulus packages of some sort. Swan won Euromoney magazine’s finance minister of the year.

Stimulus package spending was across the economy and prevented many businesses from going broke. Unemployment was kept under 6% compared with more than 10% during the world and therefore Australian economic downturns of the early 1980s and early 1990s with Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating as prime ministers.

The Coalition (Liberal and National parties) and some of its supporters still talk nonsense about debt and deficit disaster under Labor. But Australia came out of the GFC period with the third lowest government debt to GDP ratio of the 34 OECD countries in 2013, since pushed out to ninth lowest after more than four years of Coalition government. Expenditure under the Coalition is actually higher as about 25.4% of GDP than it was under Labor which averaged about 24.8% and Labor had the GFC.

We can be thankful that the Coalition wasn’t in government at this time. Given their slowness and conservative nature, I think their response to the GFC would have been too little too late to keep us out of recession. Thank you Wayne Swan and Labor for being there.

Daylight saving time saga: Indiana 1966-1972

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Alabama, Appeals Court, Arizona, blanket, Chicago, Cincinnati, daylight saving time, double daylight time, Edgar Whitcomb, Farm Bureau, federal court, Florida, Georgia, history, Huntingburg, Idaho, Indian, Indiana, Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Indiana General Assembly, Indianapolis, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Richard Nixon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Transportation Department, Uniform Time Act of 1966, Utah, Wyoming

Here’s an extract from my book on the history of daylight saving time around the world, The Great Daylight Saving Time Controversy. Daylight saving in the US had been chaotic for two decades before the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was finally passed. But that was not the end of the matter in many states. About half the states introduced bills into their state legislature in 1966 and 1967 to exempt themselves from daylight saving time, including Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota in the midwest, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas in the south and Arizona, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the west. Here’s what happened in Indiana at that time …

More complex and protracted battles ensued in Indiana and Michigan. Time arrangements in Indiana had been working quite well and it wanted to maintain them rather than for the whole state to shift to daylight time in summer. Officially, the state was split fairly evenly between the Eastern and Central time zones. In practice, 77 of the 92 counties used Eastern Standard Time all year except for a small area in the south-east near Cincinnati that advanced its clocks. The other 15 counties, in the state’s north-west and south-west corners, were on Central time and had daylight saving to be on the same time as adjacent states and nearby cities such as Chicago. In the six warmer months, the whole state had been on the same time. Further, standard time was well ahead of sun time, with Indianapolis forward by 45 minutes, and residents didn’t want to be ahead by nearly two hours with what they called “double daylight time”.

Indiana, in 1967, got away with its law to put one clock in each public building an hour ahead and for communities to decide their own time. The legislature wasn’t due to meet in 1968 and many people worried that the state would automatically have to go onto daylight time. Their fears were confirmed when the Transportation Department announced on 14 March 1967 that the state was to have daylight saving that year. But the state Farm Bureau felt that business would be disrupted and took the issue to the federal court. Theatre owners did the same, as drive-in movies would be forced to start very late and would lose a lot of customers.

A month later, the department reversed its decision, which gave Indiana until the following year to fix its time problems. Farmers and theatre operators withdrew their suits. But now it was the turn of the television stations to take the matter to federal court due to “substantial advertising revenue loss” if the state was on standard time and nearly everywhere else was on daylight time. They won their case and Indiana was ordered on 17 July 1968 to switch to daylight saving within 10 days. The US district attorney appealed the decision. Meanwhile, on 26 July, the same judge rejected a plea to delay his order and directed that daylight saving begin on Sunday at 2 a.m. two days later. But on 27 July, the Appeals Court granted a week’s stay.

The time turmoil encouraged The Indianapolis Star to repeat an old daylight saving joke at the top of page 1 of its newspaper on the Monday: “Today’s chuckle: Daylight Saving Time is founded on the old Indian idea of cutting off one end of the blanket and sewing it on the other end to make it longer.” This relates to a comment purportedly made by a native American years earlier when told about daylight saving: “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

Television stations asked the Court of Appeals on 30 July to reverse its decision as they were losing revenue. The farmers and theatres reentered the row next day, seeking a delay until the next year. Joining them was the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns. On 2 August, the Appeals Court halted the daylight saving order indefinitely or until a final decision could be made. By then it was midsummer and well over a month after the longest day.

In January 1969, the Department of Transportation ruled that all of Indiana except the north-west and south-west corners would be in the Eastern time zone from April, a decision praised by the governor, Edgar Whitcomb, although the new directive reflected precisely what had been happening in practice for a number of years. The department would also seek to change the Uniform Time Act to allow states in two time zones to use daylight saving in one and keep standard time in the other. A bill to exempt the state from daylight saving was passed by both houses of the Indiana General Assembly in March but it was vetoed by the governor on the last day of the session despite close to four to one support for the bill in the House and almost three to one in the Senate. He was concerned that the state would be on a different hour to nearby states. There was no time to override the veto and the legislature wasn’t due to meet again until 1971 unless the governor called it back early, which he didn’t.

All of Indiana officially had daylight saving in 1969 although a few areas went their own way. One was the city of Huntingburg in the south-west. The council altered the city hall clock by an hour but, in an act of defiance, set out a resolution asking people to remain on Eastern Standard Time or simply pick their own time over the summer months.

…

Many residents and organisations complained about “double daylight time”, which they would now have to put up with for two years: 1969 and 1970. When the legislature reconvened in January 1971, the House voted 61 to 36 to override the governor’s 1969 veto of the bill to exempt Indiana from daylight saving. Ironically, the chamber clock was exactly three hours slow. The Senate voted 24-24 before another vote a few days later resulted in two senators swapping sides in a 26 to 22 count to override the veto, which was met with cheers and applause. To the relief of residents, Indiana would keep to standard time in 1971. The new law included provision for the north-west and south-west corners to use Central Daylight Time, pending an amendment to the Uniform Time Act.

That came in 1972 when the president, Richard Nixon, signed a bill on 30 March allowing states in two time zones to use different times in summer. The Senate had passed a bill nearly a year earlier but it sat in a House commerce subcommittee due to a reluctance to reopen the standard time–daylight time debate. North-west and south-west counties in Indiana could now legally have daylight saving. Seven counties in the south-east using Eastern Daylight Time weren’t covered by the amended Act but kept using this time in the warmer months regardless.

(end of excerpt)

The Great Daylight Saving Time Controversy is available at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y2R5KQ7), Kobo and Apple.