The Iowa legislature has passed a bill to create a public information board with the power to enforce open-records laws on local government entities.
Senate File 430 creates a state Public Information Board composed of nine members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Iowa Senate. Three members will represent the public. Three members will represent the news media (to be nominated by the Iowa Broadcasters Association, the Iowa Newspaper Association, and the Iowa Freedom of Information Council). Three members will represent local government entities (to be nominated by the Iowa League of Cities, the Iowa State Association of Counties, and the Iowa Association of School Boards).
For years, media organizations and some public advocacy groups have urged the Iowa legislature to put some teeth behind the state’s laws regarding public meetings and open records. Senate File 430 has had a long road through the legislature. The Iowa Senate approved the bill unanimously in March 2011, and the Iowa House State Government Committee recommended passage. The bill was then referred to the House Appropriations Committee, where no further action was taken in 2011.
In February of this year, Senate File 430 was sent back to the State Government Committee. Last month it went through that committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee; each time, committee members recommended passage. Finally, House leaders brought the bill up for debate on the Iowa House floor on April 17. After a few amendments were approved, the bill passed by 92 votes to 7. The House Journal (pdf) contains the roll call and further details on the amendments. All state representatives voted for Senate File 430 except for Republican Josh Byrnes, who was absent, and the following seven House members: Republicans Kim Pearson, Glen Massie, and Tom Shaw, and Democrats Mary Gaskill, Dave Jacoby, Kevin McCarthy, and Rick Olson.
The Iowa Senate unanimously approved the House version of this bill on April 23. Senators from both parties praised the measure. Rod Boshart has more details on how the board will operate:
The nine-member panel will have until July 1, 2013, to hire an executive director, who will advise the board that will have the power to hear and mediate disputes between Iowans and government bodies in matters of public meetings and open records and levy fines of up to $2,500 for willful violations. The board’s authority would not extend to the governor’s office, the judicial branch or the Legislature.
[Governor Terry] Branstad said the public information board will be an important entity to convey accurate information to government officials and citizens on compliance with state open meetings/open records laws and to provide an independent enforcement mechanism for the first time. “That’s something that most other states have and I think we should have in the state of Iowa as well,” the governor said.
Currently, citizen complaints on open meetings and records issues are handled by the state Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman and the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.
The ombudsman’s office – which handled about 231 public records, meeting and privacy requests last year – can investigate complaints and issue warnings, but has no power to enforce the state’s statute. The attorney general’s office – which received about 100 public meeting and open records requests last year that mostly were handled informally without levying any fines – has the authority to enforce state statute, but its enforcement necessarily involves filing a lawsuit if penalties are going to be assessed to an offender.
Jason Clayworth reported,
The state’s ombudsman’s office, an investigative agency with no enforcement power, averaged about 285 contacts about public records, open meetings and privacy issues per year from 2008 through 2010.
Current law empowers local city and county attorneys or even the Iowa attorney general to prosecute alleged violators, but that action is rare, said Kathleen Richardson of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. She said she’s aware of only one county attorney prosecuting such a case in the past decade.
The longtime argument as to why little action is taken in the matter has been that those lawyers represent the government agencies they are being asked to prosecute.
The lobbyist declarations show broad opposition from individual city governments as well as from the Iowa League of Cities, the Metropolitan Coalition, the Iowa Association of School Boards, the Iowa State Association of County Supervisors, the Iowa State Association of Counties, the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, Missouri River Energy Services, and the Iowa Hospital Association. The Iowa League of Cities holds that the bill is unnecessary and will lead to more costly litigation against cities and towns.
Groups supporting Senate File 430 included the League of Women Voters, the Iowa Newspaper Association, the Iowa Broadcasters Association, the Justice Reform Consortium, Iowans for Tax Relief, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.
The bill has some big holes: namely, it does not apply to the state legislature, the governor’s office, or the judicial branch of state government. In addition, one of the Iowa House amendments significantly narrowed the scope of documents covered.
[L]awmakers voted to let email and other government documents remain private during the drafting stage. Senator Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, said a lot of people don’t realize that under current law, those documents are a public record immediately.
“Under the change…those drafts or speculative materials would become a public record when it is submitted to the decision makers for action,” Jochum said. Critics say that will give the public less time to review proposed changes before a city council or county board takes a vote on the proposal.
Governor Branstad has previously endorsed the idea of a public information board and praised the bill again yesterday, signaling that he will sign Senate File 430 into law.
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