INDIANAPOLIS -- Longtime state Rep. Woody Burton rarely makes passionate pleas at the podium, and in years past he hasn't been a fan of daylight-saving time.\nBut he's had enough. He supports the time change now, and he urged -- practically begged -- his House colleagues to join him last week in hopes of settling the issue.\n"I don't want to mess with this again next year," the Greenwood Republican said. "It's like a bad dream -- it just keeps coming back."\nLegislation to move all of Indiana to daylight-saving time has failed more than two dozen times over the past three decades. But one of the nation's last holdouts for observing the time switch is now teetering on the brink of change.\nFor the first time in 22 years, the Indiana House has passed a bill that would require the entire state to move its clocks forward an hour in April and back an hour in October -- just as 47 other states do.\nBut even with fresh legs, all bets are off on how this latest tug-of-war over Indiana's time will turn out.\nA House-Senate conference committee will take up the bill Monday, but lawmakers still have to fix a provision that lets counties opt out, which federal transportation officials say is illegal. Many residents oppose the switch, making votes uncertain in both parties.\nAnd even if the bill passes, proponents are divided over when to make the change -- later this year or next April -- and whether to align clocks with Chicago or New York.\nThe issue has generated so much media attention that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has made daylight time a priority, and some top lawmakers say it has overshadowed efforts to balance the state budget and revive Indiana's economy.\n"The general impression out there is that this is the only issue," said Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus.\nTime has long been a source of contention and confusion in many of Indiana's 92 counties.\nUnder state and federal laws passed in the early 1970s, five northwestern Indiana counties and five southwestern counties are in the Central time zone and observe daylight time. Eighty-two counties in the Eastern time zone are supposed to follow standard time year-round, but only 77 do. Two near Cincinnati and three near Louisville, Ky., change their clocks to be consistent with their big-city neighbors.\nIndianapolis, the state's capital, aligns its clocks with New York during the winter months and Chicago in the summer. Residents in some communities along the state's northern and southern borders often work in a time zone that's different from the one in which they live.\nMany residents say they don't mind the time differences and adamantly oppose efforts to change the system.\nBill Blomquist, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, said that resistance is rooted in states' rights sentiments, religious beliefs that humans should not mess with time and nature and a sense of pride in doing things differently.\n"There is sort of this Hoosier exceptionalism that shows up in daylight-saving time," he said.\nBut others say the state's clutch to year-round standard time makes Indiana a backward joke.\nDaniels, whose lobbying is largely responsible for the legislation's progress this year, says the confusion costs the state money and jobs. Many businesses support his cause, saying the time warp causes mix-ups over airline flights, delivery times and conference calls.
"If it were just a matter of the rest of the world laughing at us, I'd say let 'em laugh," Daniels said in his first State of the State speech in January. "But the loss of Hoosier jobs and incomes is no laughing matter, and any step that might help is worth trying."\nMark Plank of Syracuse, a systems manager for the LaGrange County Public Library, buys Daniels' argument. He used to work for an office furniture supplier and said confusion over Indiana's time cost the company customers. But he has personal reasons for backing the change, too.\nObserving Eastern Daylight Time would give his kids an extra hour of sunlight to play summer sports "and give me more time to do yard work in the evenings," he said.\nDarrell Bowden of Westfield thinks things are fine the way they are.\n"I don't like changing my clocks twice a year," he said. "The way I look at it, why doesn't the rest of the country get in step with us?"\nOne recent poll puts Bowden in the minority. The Indianapolis Star/WTHR poll of 1,003 adults found 56 percent favored turning Indiana's clocks ahead one hour each spring and back in the fall and 37 percent opposed the switch. The statewide telephone poll was conducted March 25-30 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.\nDespite the results, Blomquist said Hoosiers remain so divided over daylight time that it's a no-win vote for many legislators.\n"Daylight time is one of those issues that affects almost everybody," he said.
