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Scott Thurlow is not a morning person. This simple, personal truth is the driving force behind a quixotic political campaign that seeks to reshape how the entire state of Washington experiences time. A longtime tech executive who spent 32 years at Microsoft managing products like the original Outlook and Teams, Thurlow knows a thing or two about the logistical headaches of coordinating schedules. For him, the biannual ritual of springing forward and falling back was a constant source of friction, especially when collaborating with colleagues across the globe. “We always dreaded the time zone changes on either end because it was meeting chaos,” he recalls, pointing out that coordinating with a team in India, which is roughly 12 hours ahead, could turn a minor time shift into an operational headache. After taking a voluntary retirement package from Microsoft in July, Thurlow found himself with the time and motivation to act on a long-simmering frustration, launching a nonprofit campaign called Last Fall Back Washington.
The goal of Thurlow’s campaign is deceptively simple: he wants Washington to adopt permanent Pacific Standard Time (PST), effectively doing away with the “spring forward” shift to Daylight Saving Time (DST). The idea is straightforward, but it puts him at odds with many of his fellow advocates for change. While a growing number of people agree that the current system of switching clocks twice a year is disruptive, most—including Washington’s own legislature—have pushed to make Daylight Saving Time permanent instead. That approach, however, requires federal approval, an act of Congress that has repeatedly stalled. Thurlow’s proposal flips this logic on its head. By choosing to stay on standard time year-round, a move that requires no federal sign-off, Washington could take immediate action to end the clock-changing ritual without having to wait for Washington, D.C. to get its act together.
The urgency for this change is amplified by Washington’s complicated relationship with its northern neighbor. British Columbia has already passed legislation to move to permanent Daylight Saving Time, aligning itself with states like California and Oregon that have signaled a desire to do the same. If BC makes that shift while Washington remains on its current schedule, the result would be a year-round one-hour time difference between Seattle and Vancouver. For Thurlow, this potential border friction is one of the most compelling arguments for his proposal. He acknowledges that adopting permanent standard time would put Washington temporarily out of sync with its West Coast allies during the summer months, but he views this as an acceptable trade-off if it means putting an end to the disruptive clock-changing ritual. The real prize, he argues, is stopping the “switching” now, and hopefully syncing up with everyone else later if Congress eventually mandates a federal standard.
The debate, however, is more than just a matter of convenience or shopper foot-traffic. It is a serious public health and safety debate, and the experts are sharply divided. On one side are researchers like University of Washington law professor Steve Calandrillo, a long-time advocate for permanent Daylight Saving Time. Calandrillo argues that the extra hour of evening sunlight has profound safety benefits. “Evening darkness is more dangerous than morning darkness, because more people are out on the roads, and there is a greater chance of crime,” he explains. He worries that Thurlow’s plan to lock the clocks in standard time would push an hour of daylight to the early morning, a time when it is less useful, and would plunge winter and fall evenings into darkness much earlier, increasing the risk of traffic accidents and other hazards.
On the other side of the debate are researchers who point to a different set of health risks. Biology professor Horacio de la Iglesia has testified in favor of permanent standard time, arguing that it aligns much better with our natural circadian rhythms, the internal body clock that regulates sleep and wakefulness. Morning sunlight is a critical cue for resetting this clock, and standard time ensures we see it earlier in the day. He and other researchers contend that the split between our social clock and our biological clock—a mismatch that is worst under Daylight Saving Time—can lead to chronic sleep deprivation and a host of related health problems. The debate extends even to the natural world, with environmental and forest sciences professor Laura Prugh citing research showing that the shift to standard time in the fall coincides with a measurable spike in deer-vehicle collisions, as both human and animal activity patterns suddenly change.
Undeterred by these conflicting expert opinions, Thurlow is charting a pragmatic path forward. He knows that the gridlock in Congress is likely to continue, and rather than waiting for a top-down solution, he is advocating for a bottom-up one. His plan involves legislative and grassroots action: either convincing state lawmakers to pass his “Last Fall Back Act” in the upcoming 2027 session, or, if they fail to act, taking the issue directly to the people. Washington state law allows for citizen initiatives, and Thurlow is prepared to launch a signature-gathering campaign to put the measure on a future ballot. This strategy requires significant time and effort—collecting hundreds of thousands of valid signatures to qualify for the 2028 ballot—but it bypasses a paralyzed legislature and places the ultimate decision squarely in the hands of the voters. “The single most effective thing we can do is have lots of people contacting their legislators,” he says, outlining his initial plan to build a groundswell of support.
Ultimately, Thurlow is betting on the fatigue of a populace that has grown tired of a decades-old, ambiguous solution to energy conservation that no longer makes sense in the modern world. He argues that the endless debate over which time is the “right” time has been a distraction from the real goal of stopping the change itself. The costs of temporary misalignment with neighboring states, he insists, are worth the permanent benefit of a stable, unchanging schedule. He is not trying to win over the sleep scientists or the road-safety experts, but instead is focusing on the average person who is simply weary of resetting their microwave and losing an hour of sleep. He is trying to channel the public’s desire for a reliable routine into political action. For a man who spent his career making digital tools work seamlessly across time zones, the fight against the clock represents a final, personal project: to make the simple act of telling time a little less complicated for everyone, one fall at a time.
