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Bill to ban citizen police review boards advances in Iowa Senate

Iowa Statehouse capitol dome
Natalie Krebs
/
Iowa Public Radio
A bill to ban citizen police review boards has advanced in the Iowa Senate.

Citizen-led boards to review police misconduct would be banned in Iowa cities under a bill advanced Tuesday by Republicans on an Iowa Senate panel.

Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Iowa City, Dubuque and University Heights have citizen police review boards that would have to be eliminated if the bill becomes law. The same bill passed in the Senate last year and got through an Iowa House committee, but it never got a vote by the full House of Representatives.

Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, said even though citizen police review boards can’t actually discipline officers, they can still have a big impact.

“They can put a public opinion on those particular people that is unheard of,” he said. “And then our friends in the media have a tendency to take off with that and can destroy police officers, firefighters, public works people. It makes it irresponsible.”

"Dismantling these boards silences the community’s call for oversight and transparency within the justice system."
NAACP Iowa-Nebraska President Betty Andrews

NAACP Iowa-Nebraska President Betty Andrews said the organization is opposed to the bill because citizen review boards are vital to help ensure fair and transparent policing.

“Citizens review boards provide a fair and independent and independent look-in, ensuring law enforcement understands that accountability to the public is paramount,” she said. “Dismantling these boards silences the community’s call for oversight and transparency within the justice system.”

Andrews said the NAACP helped establish four of Iowa’s citizen review boards because of community concerns, including alleged racial profiling. She said lawmakers should support efforts to “enhance accountability and rebuild trust between law enforcement and Iowa’s diverse communities.”

The bill states that cities with a civil service commission — which is required for cities with a population of at least 8,000 and a paid police or fire department — would be prohibited from having a board “for the purpose of citizen review of the conduct of police officers.”

The measure is part of a bill proposed by the Iowa Fraternal Order of Police that would also change procedures for city employee discipline.

It would change the standard for firing, suspending or demoting a city employee. The bill would also make the process for appealing discipline — which takes place before a city civil service commission — more similar to a court proceeding with the production of documents and taking of depositions. It would require a final decision by the commission to be made in writing and include the reasoning for the decision, and it could make cities pay the legal fees of employees who successfully appeal their discipline.

Josh Van Brocklin, vice president of the Iowa Fraternal Order of Police, said the bill is needed because the appeal process for police discipline is “woefully missing due process.” He said the process has been abused for political reasons, and that raises concerns police officers.

“The members wonder, like they do when they look elsewhere in the country and see police officers being scapegoated or railroaded or not given a fair trial or due process, they wonder if it might be them [next],” Van Brocklin said. “And this has a chilling effect.”

Attorneys for Des Moines and Iowa City said they have concerns about some parts of the bill, especially opening the appeal process to full fact-finding like a civil court case, and provisions that could put taxpayers on the hook for more legal fees.

"Ultimately, I think the effect of the bill as a whole will be to make imposing discipline against most employees in civil service communities… so painful and expensive that local governments will simply put up with bad employees."
Eric Goers, city attorney for Iowa City

Eric Goers, city attorney for Iowa City, said those changes would make employment discipline more costly and time-consuming.

“Ultimately, I think the effect of the bill as a whole will be to make imposing discipline against most employees in civil service communities… so painful and expensive that local governments will simply put up with bad employees,” he said. “And that should be no one’s goal. And taxpayers would have to pay for it all.”

Sen. Webster said the bill’s goal is to ensure civil servants are not unjustly fired, and it still allows people to be fired if they violate state laws. He and Sen. Dawn Driscoll, R-Williamsburg, voted to advance the bill to the full Senate Local Government Committee for consideration.

Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, did not vote to advance it. She said she agrees that civil servants employed by cities should have their rights respected in employment matters, but she has concerns about some parts of the bill.

“The general gist is fine,” Weiner said. “I just think we still have some details that need to be ironed out so that it doesn’t end up being too big a burden on anyone in this process, and everybody ends up getting a fair shake.”

Weiner also said she believes existing citizen police review boards should be allowed to continue, even if cities are barred from creating them in the future.

Katarina Sostaric is IPR's State Government Reporter, with expertise in state government and agencies, state officials and how public policy affects Iowans' lives. She's covered Iowa's annual legislative sessions, the closure of state agencies, and policy impacts on family planning services and access, among other topics, for IPR, NPR and other public media organizations. Sostaric is a graduate of the University of Missouri.