Like a lot of us, Daniel Bernier finds the shift between standard and daylight saving time irritating. Unlike most of us, he’s got a plan to do something about it. Bernier has a proposal for a ballot referendum that would allow DC residents to vote on whether they’d like to put a permanent stop to the twice-annual annoyance. If he’s able to make it through the legal process and collect enough signatures to qualify, the initiative will appear on a future ballot. In theory, District residents could be nearing the end of the whole falling-back and springing-forward thing.
With his Gandalfish gray beard and ski-goggle-like glasses, the gregarious activist cut a memorable figure when we recently met up at a Korean bakery in Chinatown. Bernier is an Air Force veteran and “Burner” (someone who attends the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada) who these days supports himself as a production manager at a data center. He also volunteers as an abortion-clinic escort and is involved with Ward 3 Mutual Aid. The Washington Post once ran a photo of him dressed as Santa Claus, holding a sign that placed President Trump and members of his first administration on the “naughty list.” How often do people stop to take his photo? “All the time,” he says.
Bernier got interested in ditching DC’s time-change policy after hearing John Oliver do a bit on daylight saving time during his Kennedy Center performance last December. “I was like, ‘You can do that?’ ” Bernier recalls. “I find changing the time irritating for any number of reasons. I really just dislike the whole thing.” Getting rid of it in the District “would allow us to at least exercise a little bit of autonomy here in our own city and improve our lives.” Though it could create chaos if the time were different in Maryland and Virginia, he hopes the adjacent states—or even the whole country—would follow suit if the initiative were to be enacted.
Bernier’s referendum passed a key test in early June when the Board of Elections certified that it met the basic subject requirements. More hearings and hurdles remain, and then he’ll have to enlist volunteers to collect signatures from at least 5 percent of the city’s voters in each ward. That’s a process he seemed eager to embrace: “We have to get out to talk to people. I’ll teach [signature-gatherers] to be a carnival barker. I mean, look at me! I know what I look like.”
Then, having made his best case, Bernier said goodbye, mounted his electric one-wheeled scooter, and took off down H Street, where someone immediately held up their phone to take his photo. DST might be toast!
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
