Darren Soto
Representative for Florida · Democratic · United States
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to start with a little history lesson. Back in 2013, this was my bill. I wrote this bill. I thought it was a pretty good name, the Sunshine Protection Act, back in the day. It was for good reason. I had gotten to the State senate.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗
“It made far more sense to keep daylight saving time, which is the 8 months out of the year that we have light in the afternoons and evenings. I filed that bill without a press release back in 2013. It became statewide news.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗
“Then I encourage schools and educational institutions around the Nation, to adjust school start times based upon what they think is best to keep kids safe.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗
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“Then I encourage schools and educational institutions around the Nation, to adjust school start times based upon what they think is best to keep kids safe. At the end of the day, we have talked about how it is good for business, good for recreation, and good to help out with making sure that we don't have this public health issue every time we are changing the clocks back and forth. It is finally time to bring sunshine across the Nation, and I urge my colleagues to support this amazing Sunshine Protection Act.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗
“It made far more sense to keep daylight saving time, which is the 8 months out of the year that we have light in the afternoons and evenings. I filed that bill without a press release back in 2013. It became statewide news. For 4 years straight, every time this bill came up, it was the most viewed bill in the Florida Senate for 4 years straight. I will say that I never got a chance to pass that bill out of the Florida Legislature, although I know some of my colleagues who are here today ended up doing it after I was gone. It is one of the burdens of being a Democrat in a Republican-dominated legislature. Mr.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to start with a little history lesson. Back in 2013, this was my bill. I wrote this bill. I thought it was a pretty good name, the Sunshine Protection Act, back in the day. It was for good reason. I had gotten to the State senate. In the State House, you can only file a certain number of bills, but once we got to the State senate, I really got jelling on coming up with ideas that would help our State. Up until that point, every idea on trying to stop the clock change was going to standard time. No one likes standard time. It is darkness in the wintertime, and so we, as The Sunshine State--a lot of Floridians here--and coastal New Jerseyans and others here from Louisiana, we like the sunshine.”
House of Representatives14 July 2026Source ↗