Two state lawmakers want to change how Coloradans set their clocks, but they have different proposals on what to do about daylight saving time.

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, wants Colorado to permanently run on daylight saving time, thus making it darker on winter mornings and lighter later in the evenings.

“This is Colorado,” he said. “We are a very outdoorsy state. People like having that evening time to go outside.”

Rep. Ed Vigil, D-Fort Garland, wants Colorado to join Hawaii and Arizona in staying on standard time year-round.

“The farmers and the ranchers around here don’t see a lot of reason for it,” Vigil said of changing clocks in the spring and fall. “And the kids, their little bodies don’t adjust easily to the time change.”

Neither lawmaker was aware that the other had submitted a bill dealing with daylight saving time.

Congress in April 1966 made daylight saving time uniform but allowed states to decide whether to exempt themselves. That November, Coloradans voted to use daylight saving time for part of spring, summer and part of fall. Since then, the federal government has gradually expanded the use of daylight saving time, moving the start date up into March and the end date back into November beginning in 2007.

Brophy admitted that his proposal probably runs afoul of federal law, which doesn’t give states the option of running on daylight saving time year-round. That’s what stopped the notion in 1999, when then- state Sen. MaryAnne Tebedo had the same idea but could not get a bill out of committee.

Brophy thinks an argument could be made that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give the federal government the authority to tell Colorado what time it is.

“I think that could be a states’-rights issue,” he said.

Brophy and Vigil foresee a lively discussion about the issue when the session opens Jan. 12.

Gov.-elect John Hickenlooper doesn’t have an opinion yet, said spokesman Eric Brown.

“There’s DST (Daylight Saving Time), and then there’s NGT (New Governor Time),” Brown wrote in an e-mail. “We need to take time to understand the full consequences of the idea.”

Parents and educators are likely to weigh in with concerns about students heading out to school in the dark, an issue that helped doom earlier legislative attempts to toy with daylight saving time.

“The change would likely extend the number of days when students arrive at bus stops in the dark in the morning,” said Tustin Amole, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek schools.

The district offers a 12-hour transportation schedule that runs from 6:30 a.m., when students start to get picked up, to as late as 6:30 p.m., when middle schoolers and high schoolers are dropped off following after-school activities.

But Brophy said the real danger is how time changes affect drivers. He pointed to a 1998 study that showed a 17 percent increase in traffic accidents on the Monday following the start of daylight saving time in spring, when clocks are forwarded an hour. Traditionally, drivers lose an hour of sleep in the spring and gain one in the fall.

Brophy said his bill was inspired by all the comments he received on his Facebook page after he posted how much he dislikes the time changes.

His favorite response came from David Fleck, who wrote: “If we could shorten Monday to Thursday by an hour we could extend Saturday and Sunday each by 2 hrs.”

“I wish I could get that bill through,” Brophy said, laughing.

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327 or lbartels@denverpost.com