A bill that would prohibit Iowa cities from having citizen police review boards to review police misconduct and discipline was approved Tuesday by a House committee.
Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Dubuque and University Heights have citizen police review boards, and those would be dissolved if the bill becomes law.
The Iowa-Nebraska NAACP raised concerns about the bill at a news conference later in the day.
Betty Andrews, the president of the organization, said the NAACP helped start four of the five citizen review boards in the state in response to racial profiling by police. She said the boards promote balance and help ensure that law enforcement is operating properly.
“We believe in transparency in law enforcement and government, and that citizen review boards are an opportunity for fair look-in and making sure that our law enforcement knows that we, as citizens, are watching,” Andrews said.
The bill started out as a proposal to make changes to city civil service commissions, which are appointed by city councils to review hiring, promotions and disciplinary actions. The Senate amended it to add the ban on citizen police review boards last week, and the bill passed with the support of all Senate Republicans and several Democrats.
The House Local Government Committee advanced the bill Tuesday with a 13-6 vote, keeping it eligible for debate through this week’s “funnel” deadline.
Rep. Jon Dunwell, R-Newton, said civil service commissions have citizen representation, and they would continue to handle police discipline disputes as they do now.
“There’s officers’ and firemen’s lives and reputations that are on the line,” he said. “And so I really believe the utmost care in terms of dealing with these important issues for the community and also the personnel.”
Dunwell said the bill “creates a healthy process” and protects the rights of city employees who disagree with a decision made about their employment.
Rep. Jerome Amos Jr., D-Waterloo, opposed the bill. He said citizens should have a voice in what goes on in their communities.
“The review board increases transparency, and at the very least, the appearance of transparency to the general public,” he said. “Knowing that citizens sit on the police review boards helps the public to feel that police are being held accountable.”
Police lobbyists say current discipline process isn’t fair
Lobbyists who represent police officers told lawmakers at a subcommittee hearing that cities with a population over 8,000 already have a civil service commission to review law enforcement discipline and don’t need citizen review boards.
“So what we’re trying to do is to say, because there’s a civil service process, that is the civilian review process here in Iowa,” said Skylar Limkemann, an attorney for the Iowa Fraternal Order of Police.
He said the state doesn’t regulate citizen police review boards, and standardizing the law enforcement discipline process across cities would make it fairer for officers.
“So each city that has one tends to have a completely different process, purpose, and it’s kind of run amok,” Limkemann said.
He said the bill is the second phase of an effort that started in 2021, when the Iowa Legislature passed a law that expanded legal protections for police and raised penalties for protest-related offenses in response to protests that called for racial justice.
Lobbyists for cities opposed the bill. They said it is very one-sided, only taking the law enforcement perspective into account, and that cities that already have police review boards would like to keep them.
Lobbyist Doug Struyk said Iowa City and Des Moines opposed the bill. He said if the bill moves forward, existing citizen review boards should be allowed to continue.
Struyk also raised concerns about the proposed changes to city civil service commissions.
“We believe that will take these procedures, these hearings, and turn them into a much larger—basically, a court proceeding—albeit not tried in front of a judge, but definitely increasing the length of time and expense,” he said.
Police representatives said the changes would ensure law enforcement officials’ due process rights are protected.
