Police review boards banned after Iowa Senate complains of 'witch hunts' of rogue cops
Iowa local governments would not be able to have citizen police review boards under legislation passed by the Iowa Senate 37-9 Monday.
Senate File 311 prohibits cities with a civil service commission — any city with a population over 8,000 — from adopting or establishing citizens’ boards that review the conduct of law enforcement officers. Currently, five cities in Iowa have citizens’ police review boards: Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Dubuque, Iowa City and University Heights. The legislation was amended to have an enactment day of Aug. 16, 2025, if signed into law, which lawmakers said would give localities more time to comply with the measure.
Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, said cities already have bodies in charge of reviewing police actions through civil service commissions. These panels are in charge of hiring, disciplining, and firing city employees including police officers. Webster said when there are issues where a police officer’s actions are under question, there is duplication happening with citizens’ boards, as the larger civil service commission will also be reviewing the case. He also said in many situations, police officers cannot legally present their argument to this board.
“These review boards have the ability to talk about officers, worry about what happened on a particular case,” Webster said. “That officer, because of his legal requirements, can’t come in there and defend himself in any way, shape or form. That’s not what the state’s about. That’s not what this country is about. … When they’re going to have to go up against another trial, to an extent, inside of civil service, there is no reason for them to spill all of their defense in front of a civilian review board.”
But Democrats, including Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said the measure was “yet another in a seemingly unending stream of intrusions on local control” in allowing local governments to decide the best approach to police oversight in their communities. He said as a former city council member in Ames, he understood the importance of these local government entities in building trust between a community and law enforcement — and that these city boards were a way to bridge the gap between people with problems or differing views on law enforcement decisions.
“If you believe in continuous improvement, if you believe in quality control at all, you know that (the solution is) communication about these problems, building … understanding between members of the community, as well as understanding and appreciation for, and trust of, the police department,” he said.
Webster said he also supported a return to “community policing,” and that removing police review boards was necessary to do that and allow police officers to more fully participate, pointing to events like an officer going to an ice cream social.
“This is what this is going to do,” Webster said. “There’s not going to be a review board there telling them whether or not they gave out the right ice cream or not, or whether or not they did the right policy or not, or whether or not this policy should be the way that they police in their particular town. We’re going to leave it up to the experts in the room, which are the police.”
He also said concerns about opinions and voices of community members not being heard with the removal of police review boards could be addressed by adding these members to a city’s civil service commission.
The legislation also makes some changes to city civil service commissions, including raising the number of people on these commissions from a minimum of three members to having between five to seven members. It would require cities to hire outside counsel or attorneys when disputes between the city council and civil service commission involve a conflict of interest, and states that attorneys who have represented the commission, including a city attorney or assistant city attorney, cannot represent the city or its employees in appeals before the civil service board.
While current law already allows for civil service commissions’ decisions to be appealed in court, the bill would allow for a trial de novo — meaning a case that would create a fresh determination of evidence and law without reference to previous cases — at the district court level. Senate Minority Leader Janice Weiner said the bill “overly complicates a process that’s already taking place in in most communities,” saying this provision would functionally duplicate the attorney fees, discovery and presentation of evidence for issues that have already had substantial time and resources put into the case in court.
“Of course, I want everyone to have due process,” Weiner said. “It just seems like this is adding layers that are going to be expensive and difficult without necessarily changing outcomes.”
Webster said ensuring police are given due process in these instances is necessary to protect law enforcement officers. He said citizens’ review boards in particular are a concern because they are used as a political cudgel against police, linking these city government bodies to the “defund the police” movement that grew in popularity during the 2020 protests after the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer.
“These far left ideas endanger officers,” Webster said. “They destroy the rule of law in our in our country. And colleagues, today we get to vote to defend our law enforcement from political interventions from citizen review boards and the media frenzy that goes along with them. We’ve all seen how that particular frenzy can ignore the truth, ignore the facts, and instead show public opinion leading to unwarranted prosecutions of front line defenders more akin to witch hunts than real justice.”
The measure moves to the House for further consideration. The Senate bill’s companion, House File 641, is available for floor debate.
