When Does Daylight Savings Come to Dubuque and Will It Continue?

First let's get this out of the way; I am of the persuasion that Daylight Savings sucks. It messes with my internal clock. My kids sleep schedule gets all sorts of screwed up. And honestly, when we "fall back" I don't need to be getting up an hour earlier because my internal clock says its 6am rather than 5 am. Can we just set it somewhere for good and forget it. That's how I feel, and I know I'm not the only one.

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By the way, the day we "gain an hour of sleep" is rapidly approaching on November 2nd of this year (2025) when 2am becomes 1am that Sunday morning. It seems nice. An extra hour of sleep, but what is waiting for us in spring is a dastardly lie of promised daylight for a night, and several weeks, of wrecked sleep schedules and groggy mornings. That date, by the way, is March 8th, 2026.

So, what is it about Dubuque, or more specifically Iowa, that says we have to dutifully follow the national clock-change routine. On November 2nd, everyone in town will be rolling their clocks back an hour. Your phone will do it automatically (thankfully), but if you’re still rocking an old-school oven, microwave, or wall clock, get ready for that annual round of “wait, which one’s right again?”

Now, will this madness ever end? Possibly, but don’t hold your breath. Politicians have been talking about locking the clock for years. The Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent, passed the Senate once but stalled in the House. Even President Donald Trump recently called the whole system “inconvenient” and said he’d like to see it gone for good.

In plain English, the bill would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide. That means no more falling back, no more springing forward. States like Hawaii and most of Arizona, which already stay on standard time year-round, would be allowed to keep doing their own thing. The rest of us would just stay on what we currently call “daylight time” forever.

It sounds simple enough, but as with most things in Washington, it’s complicated. Even though there’s wide agreement that switching the clocks twice a year is annoying, not everyone agrees which time to keep. Some prefer more light in the evening; others want brighter mornings. There are also issues tied to health implications for sleep, travel, and national scheduling. For now Iowa, and Dubuque, will keep changing its clocks right along with everyone else. You know, because we all like being inconvenienced by our bedtime.

Until then, enjoy that extra hour of sleep this fall. Just don’t be surprised when March rolls around and we’re all stumbling about like sleep-deprived zombies again. I'll be there too, unless something changes; black coffee in hand, dark circles under my eyes, begging for the clock to stop changing seasonally.