Iowa bill would ban citizen review boards for police, change rules for officer discipline

A handful of cities in Iowa would be required to disband their citizen police review boards under a bill advancing in the Iowa Legislature.

Senate File 2325 states that cities with civil service commissions — which includes any city of more than 8,000 people — may not "establish a board or other entity for the purpose of citizen review of the conduct of police officers."

The bill would eliminate citizen review boards in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Dubuque and University Heights.

The legislation makes larger changes to the rules that govern civil service commissions, which cities use to approve hiring, promotions and discipline for law enforcement officers and other city employees.

Rep. Jerome Amos, Jr., D-Waterloo, opposed the bill. He said he believes it's important for citizens to have a voice in what goes on in their communities.

"The direction that this is going is taking citizens and their voice out of the equation," he said.

Rep. Jon Dunwell, R-Newton, said keeping the authority to review police misconduct cases with civil service commissions will create a healthy process.

"I’m hoping we can accomplish what you’re talking about: having that citizen input and making sure that there’s transparency," he told Amos. "And that’s part of what hopefully the civil service commission would do as well."

Skylar Limkemann, an attorney for the Fraternal Order of Police, who helped write the bill, told House lawmakers at a March 7 subcommittee that part of the aim of the bill is to standardize the disciplinary process for law enforcement officers and place it solely under the authority of city civil service commissions.

"We in Iowa don’t have any regulations over any civilian review boards so each city that has one tends to have a completely different process, purpose, and it’s kind of run amok," he said. "And unfortunately what we’ve seen really since 2019 and 2020 is just a continual attack of our law enforcement officers by some of these civilian review boards."

Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, called the legislation "extremely concerning." The NAACP has helped push for citizens review boards in several cities that currently have them in place.

"We believe in transparency in law enforcement and government and that citizens review boards are an opportunity for a fair look in and making sure that our law enforcement knows that we as citizens are watching," Andrews said at a news conference Tuesday at the Iowa Capitol. "So it’s an opportunity to bring balance and to also just make sure that things are operating properly within law enforcement."

What else does the bill change about city civil service commissions?

The bill also changes several other rules for how civil service commissions would operate in Iowa.

The bill states that an employee with civil service protections could only be removed, discharged, demoted or suspended with just cause and after a finding that the employee violated the law or city policies or rules.

It gives both the accused party and the civil service commission the power to issue subpoenas and engage in discovery of information, as they would be able to do in a court case.

Doug Struyk, a lobbyist for the cities of Des Moines and Iowa City, told lawmakers during the House subcommittee that adding subpoena power to the civil service commission process will drag out what is supposed to be a quick process.

"We believe that will take these procedures, these hearings and turn them into a much larger, basically a court proceeding," he said. "Albeit not tried in front of a judge, but definitely increasing the length of time and expense that’s supposed to be an expedited process here to address the concerns between the employee and the chiefs."

Kelli Paschke, a lobbyist for the Iowa Peace Officers Association, said the current civil service is "stacked against" an officer who is fired or disciplined and that adding subpoena power would even the playing field.

"Civil service commission is appointed by the city, chosen by the mayor, the officers have no say who sits there. And then the city is represented by the city attorney and the commission is represented by the city attorney and we can’t do any discovery to defend ourselves," she said. "What could go wrong?"

Under the bill, commissions would have to be between five and seven members, up from the current minimum of three members.

The city attorney's office would not be allowed to represent the civil service commission in instances when a city employee is appealing a disciplinary decision. Instead, the city would be required to pay the cost of an outside attorney for the commission.

And city employees who win an appeal would be allowed to collect attorney fees from the city.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa bill would ban citizen review boards for police misconduct