Bill that awaits governor’s signature has ‘enormous loophole’ for open meetings

The Iowa State Capitol on Feb. 13, 2024. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

A bill adopted by the Iowa Legislature this year that is meant to more harshly penalize open meetings violations might also enable city councils, school boards and others to deliberate in secret, according to the Iowa Public Information Board.

House File 2539 would increase the penalties for violating a state law that generally requires governmental bodies to operate transparently. That includes providing sufficient notice and agendas for their meetings and deliberating and voting in public.

Purposeful violations of that law could result in fines of up to $12,500 for each board or council member who participated — up from $2,500 — according to the bill. It would further require repeat offenders to be expelled from office.

However, a late amendment to the bill might have undercut those provisions.

Under current law, it’s permissible for a majority of a board’s or council’s members to attend the same social event “when there is no discussion of policy or no intent to avoid” open meetings requirements. With the amendment, lawmakers sought to emphasize that includes gatherings that are “hosted or organized by a political party, political candidate or civic organization.”

“There’s some concerns in some smaller counties in Iowa that have, say, three (county) supervisors, that if they’re attending a social event for a political party or a civic gathering, that they would be in violation of the open meetings law,” Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, said last month in support of the amendment during debate in the Senate. “This clarifies that’s not a meeting.”

The problem is that the additional text was placed in a way that fully exempts those gatherings from open meeting requirements, said Erika Eckley, executive director of the Iowa Public Information Board, which is charged with deciding whether government officials violate open meetings and records law.

“This language is in direct conflict with the transparency requirements of Iowa’s sunshine laws and will create an enormous loophole for government bodies to allow for decisions to be made in secret, avoiding public consideration and disclosure, which is contrary to ensuring accountability of government to Iowans and the legislative intent behind the legislation,” Eckley wrote in a letter to Gov. Kim Reynolds this month.

Eckley sent that letter at the direction of IPIB’s legislative committee, which sought to notify Reynolds of their interpretation of the bill before Reynolds potentially signs it into law.

“It’s so poorly drafted you could drive a truck through it,” Barry Lindahl, an IPIB member who is part of the legislative committee, said during a meeting early this month. Lindahl is a longtime attorney for the City of Dubuque.

A spokesperson for Reynolds did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this article. Eckley said Wednesday she has not received a response from the governor’s office to her letter, which was dated May 3.

Reynolds should veto the bill, said Randy Evans, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, which advocates for open government.

Evans supports increasing the fines for violations but said the apparently errant amendment has negative implications that far outweigh the bill’s benefits.

“This is an example of what happens when there are last-minute amendments and there is not the opportunity to fully vet them,” he said. “Lawmakers believe they know what the intent is, but when you sort of look at the language in the bright light of the morning, you sometimes realize that the intent and what the language says are not the same thing.”

The bill was amended and adopted unanimously in the Senate in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session on April 18. The change was then approved by the House.

Webster, who managed the bill in the Senate, did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this article.

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