Des Moines exhales: legislature leaves, sanity returns

A few bills brought progress – most brought embarrassment

All of us in the Des Moines area can breathe a sigh of relief now that the Iowa legislature has gone home.

The metro area is a progressive, welcoming blue dot in a state that has turned intolerant, regressive and ruby red. As pleasant as life can be in Des Moines, each January, rural legislators flood into town with their list of wacky ideas to drag us all back to the dark ages. They storm in with an agenda aimed at harming public schools, our universities and life in the big city.

The list of horrible bills passed this year is long, from removing civil rights protections from trans Iowans, to letting 18-year-olds run around with guns, to the ridiculous creation of a “school of intellectual freedom” at the University of Iowa, to requiring the Iowa colleges of medicine and dentistry to enroll classes made up of at least 80% resident Iowans. They may as well put up a sign at the I-80 river crossings telling folks from the other 49 states that they’re not welcome here.

On occasion, despite themselves, the legislature gets a few things right, although the list is much shorter. Banning cellphones in schools makes good sense. At Hoover High School in Des Moines, Axios reports Hoover’s first-year cellphone ban has resulted in a 31% increase in A’s and B’s, and a 60% decrease in school suspensions.

The bill to ban cellphone use while driving should make life safer for us all. Multiple times per week I’m behind somebody at a stop light who doesn’t go when the light turns green because their head is down in their phone.

Two pro-media bills

Two bills should help media outlets in Iowa.

The so-called anti-SLAPP bill would allow judges to quickly dismiss nuisance lawsuits filed against media outlets. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” They are filed by people upset by a news story, even though it was true, and are designed to drag news organizations through lengthy, expensive legal battles to drain resources. For some small news outlets, an expensive lawsuit can force them to close down, which hurts communities and the people who live there.

Of course, Republicans in control of the legislature made sure to include a provision that the new anti-SLAPP protections can’t be applied retroactively. So, President Trump’s baseless lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Seltzer would be allowed to continue.

Open meeting violations get costly

The second bill increases penalties when government officials violate open meeting and open records laws. Current law calls for fines between $100 and $500 for violations of open meetings laws. The bill increases the fines to between $500 and $2,500.

An official who knowingly violates the law currently could face a fine between $1,000 and $2,500. The bill increases that to $5,000 to $12,500.

The Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a non-profit which fights to maintain all Iowans’ access to government records and meetings, gets called on an all-too-frequent basis about public officials who do outrageous things to shut the news media and the public out of government affairs.

One of the most frequent violations is the tendency for school boards, city councils and boards of supervisors to go into closed session, supposedly to discuss a personnel matter, when in fact they use that as a lame excuse to discuss in private everything under the sun. Not only is it lame, it’s illegal.

Public boards must obey the law, which requires them to close their meetings only for a narrow list of reasons – and stick to that topic.

All too often, the Iowa FOI council has to hire lawyers and fight like hell to take offending agencies to court. The public officials usually lose, but lately, it’s just been a cost of doing business. So, the steeper fines should help them think twice before they close the door.

Both the anti-SLAPP bill and the freedom of information bills are on Governor Reynolds’ desk. Let’s hope she signs them.

(Regular readers of this column know that all proceeds from paid subscriptions are donated to the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. The Council plays a vital role in defending transparency and accountability—not just for journalists, but for all Iowans. It operates on a modest budget, sustained in large part by the generosity of a few committed attorneys who take on these cases for little or no compensation. By supporting this column, you're also supporting the FOI Council and its mission to remind public officials that they serve the people of Iowa. Thank you.)

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