Under a bill advanced by Iowa lawmakers, cities with citizen police review boards would have to disband the commissions, including Iowa City’s. 

The three-member panel of Iowa Senators advanced the bill, Senate Study Bill 1010, 2-1 on Tuesday. Sens. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, and Dawn Driscoll, R-Washington, voted for the bill, with Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, opposed. 

The bill would disband five citizen review boards and prevent future ones from forming. Currently, Iowa City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Coralville, and University Heights are the only cities in Iowa with such boards. 

Webster said the commissions can hurt the reputations of the police officers reviewed by the board, and the damaging reports are often picked up by the media. 

“The concern I have with those is that police officers and public servants end up going in front of civilian review boards,” Webster said during the hearing on Tuesday. “And yes, those civilian review boards can’t fire them, but they can put a public opinion on those particular people that is unheard of, and then 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.” 

Iowa City established their Citizen Police Review Board in 1997, according to the City of Iowa City, and other boards were more recently established in response to widespread protests in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Skylar Limkemann, an attorney for the Iowa Fraternal Order of Police, said that they would prefer the legislation to move forward as is because of the civilian review boards “aggressively pursuing actions,” against police officers since 2020. 

“The civilian review boards have been set up and have been aggressively pursuing actions and complaints against officers, and unfortunately, we’ve seen that here in Iowa after 2019 and 2020,” Limkemann said. 

Weiner, who represents Iowa City and has previously served on Iowa City City Council, said that the police review boards she has experience with didn’t have any power to discipline an officer. 

“They were simply reviewing things,” Weiner said. 

Other provisions of the bill change the process for city civil service commissions to suspend, fire, or demote city employees with civil service protections. Webster said the bill’s aim is to bring more due process to the process and protect police officers from improper discipline. 

The bill also allows police officers, fire fighters, and city public works employees to recoup attorney’s fees if they are found to “substantially prevail” in their claim if they appeal a civil service decision to a district court. 

Eric Goers, the city attorney for Iowa City said assessing attorney’s fees if the civil service employee were to “substantially prevail” would require taxpayers to foot the bill for three private attorney’s fees when coupled with requiring the city hire an attorney to represent the city in the case. 

Carol Moser, the deputy city attorney for Des Moines, said requiring the city to pay attorney’s fees would discourage employers from disciplining problematic employees. 

Goers and Moser also said the 90 day discovery period was too short and would not allow for full discovery. 

The bill now heads to the full Senate Local Government Committee for consideration. 

Iowa lawmakers advance bill to require county supervisor districts 

Under a bill advanced by Iowa lawmakers Tuesday, certain Iowa counties would have to adopt county supervisor districts, instead of at large models, in the next election cycle. 

The bill, Senate Study Bill 1018, would require counties that are the home of an Iowa Regent Universities main campus or have a population over 125,000 to adopt a county supervisor district representation plan in the next general election. 

The bill would require Johnson, Black Hawk, Story, and Scott counties to adopt districts in the 2026 midterm election. 

A panel of three Iowa Senators advanced the bill, 2-1 with the Democrat on the panel opposing. Sens. Driscoll and David Sires, R-Cedar Falls, supported the bill and Weiner opposed the bill. 

Driscoll, the chair of the panel, said that the bill is meant to help rural residents gain representation in urban counties. 

“It’s very impactful and very important for these areas to be represented by rural people,” Driscoll said. “To me, it’s not a political game at all. It is rural representation versus urban, and I think that I have made that very clear over the last couple of years.” 

Weiner, who represents part of Johnson County, said the bill is not necessary as voters have the opportunity to change the representation plan via referendum.

Weiner also suggested lowering the threshold to include other large counties like bills in previous years had done. Previous versions had the population threshold at 60,000 and would include Dallas, Pottawattamie, and Woodbury counties.   

“I mean it’s clear to me, it’s clearly an attempt to sort of shift who is representing in which county and we are, and we ought to just be open about that,” Weiner said. 

The bill also requires the counties with a population of more than 125,000 or home to a regent university to hold a special election if a vacancy on the board is made.