Today, I'm going to do something I rarely do in this column: praise Marco Rubio. Because Rubio has been the driving force behind trying to change a system that virtually everyone hates, but that which will also probably continue for quite some time to come. And time is the heart of the issue, because I am speaking of the biannual change to and from daylight saving time.

Everybody I've ever met hates making the change twice a year. Maybe I just haven't met some vast silent majority out there who loves it, but I kind of doubt that. It's annoying and disruptive to just about everyone's life (except in the few places such as Hawai'i where they just don't make the change at all and stay on standard time year-round). It takes at least a week to adjust to, each and every time. And for part of the year it leaves everyone annoyed at the time the sun rises and sets.

Which is precisely the problem, because there are indeed two sides to this issue. There are those who would love to stay on standard time (what we are experiencing right now) all year long and there are those who would love to stay on daylight time forever (what we're about to "spring forward" to). It is a divisive issue -- a whole bunch of people might agree that chucking the current system makes sense, but when it comes to which time we should adopt on a permanent basis, there's a vast chasm of disagreement.

This divide isn't really political in nature (or maybe "partisan" is a better word). At least so far, there is no Democratic Party or Republican Party position on it. People who want more sun at the end of the day fall all over the political spectrum, as do the people who want more sun at the start of the day. It's a much more personal issue than even which political team you root for. Which makes it fairly unique in today's polarized partisan world. There are "red" and "blue" people on both sides of this divide (although in what proportion I couldn't say with any accuracy).

It's also an issue with a built-in risk for the politicians. If they vote to get rid of the twice-a-year changes, it wouldn't even matter which way they decided because either way there would be a whole lot of people angry with the decision. That's not exactly an enticement for the politicians to do anything, you'll note -- which is why I predicted that America is just not going to go through this shift any time soon.

The only possible compromise would be a rather silly one -- shift one-half hour in between the two and call it a day (literal pun intended). I say this is silly because this would leave the United States 30 minutes askew from the rest of the world's time, but perhaps Americans simply wouldn't care (as with our refusal to adopt the metric system, for example).

This is all made even harder by the history. America already did attempt to get rid of the shift, back in the 1970s. We were supposed to permanently go on daylight saving time (or at least for a two-year experimental period) in 1974, but the experiment was halted after less than a year because those who hated it convinced the politicians to go back to the old way. From a New York Times article from this period:

A study on public acceptance of daylight saving time was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago and showed that 79 per cent of those interviewed last December favored the daylight time move. This total dropped to 42 per cent in February.

A lot of people hated dark winter mornings, it seems. And the plan didn't even really do what it was intended to do (save energy during the energy crisis) all that effectively, so Congress scrapped the idea.

Debating which way to go -- year-round daylight saving time or year-round standard time -- is going to get contentious. There will be those on either side claiming that the scientific facts clearly show their way is better, whether for sleep cycles, for schoolchildren going to school in the mornings, for farmers, for outdoor businesses (such as golf courses and the like), or for people's general well-being. But while each side will point to their own pet scientific data, the one thing the science clearly shows is that it is changing times twice a year that is the worst part of the entire system. Traffic fatalities increase, health problems pop up more often, it is just undeniable that the current system has major societal drawbacks. But there is no clear consensus as to which way would be better on a permanent basis.

As I mentioned, this isn't even a politically ideological issue. I am aware of no "conservative" or "progressive" formal position on it, because there are plenty of both on both sides of the issue. It cuts across the partisan divide. But that doesn't mean it isn't a debate worth having. If almost all of us can agree that we hate the biannual change, then government should at least explore the possibility of getting rid of it for good. That's what government is supposed to do, even on contentious issues, after all.

Which is why I have to praise Marco Rubio, for once again introducing his "Sunshine Protection Act" which would shift America to daylight time year-round. Rubio lives in Florida, where there are plenty of outdoor-based businesses that would benefit from such a change, but again this isn't partisan. California passed a referendum in 2018 that merely instructed the state government to get rid of the shift if it could -- without weighing in on which way to go. But Proposition 7 was never really acted on, because it requires two-thirds of the state legislature to agree on which system to pick, and because it would probably require a change in federal law for it to happen either way.

In the last Congress, Rubio snuck his bill through an unsuspecting Senate, as a routine piece of business that passed unanimously in the midst of a bunch of actual routine pieces of business. Senators interviewed later weren't even aware that they had passed a bill to impose daylight time year-round. But then the bill went over to the House and died a quiet death in committee.

This time around, I am hoping that we actually will have a robust debate. Let's have a Senate and House committee publicly investigate the pros and cons of both ways we could move forward. Let's draw the line between those who favor daylight time and those who prefer standard time. Let's poll the public on the issue. Let's examine all the science that has been done on the question. Let's have that debate, in a big way.

The effort may well wind up being fruitless. Congress may fail to pass anything. Or they could even pass something and if too many people hated it they could reverse it again later (as they did back in the 1970s). But let's stop just ignoring it and grumbling about it twice a year. If there's a system that everybody hates, then we should at least make an honest attempt at fixing it. If half the people don't like the new system, maybe they'll get used to it after a few years and the entire issue will fade. Maybe schools will adjust their schedules in the winter to start classes an hour later in the day (which seems like an easier fix than forcing every other aspect of life to change). But let's at least make the attempt. This is such a frustrating thing for everyone to go through twice a year that it seems ripe for at least discussing what to do differently.

Or, to put it more aptly: the time has come. Which is why I fully support Marco Rubio's effort, no matter the outcome. If he has his way and daylight time goes year-round, I will adapt to it. If the other side wins and we get standard time year-round, I will adapt to that too. Either way (to me) seems a lot better than going through the ridiculous "fall back/spring forward" dance every year until the end of time.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant