Stiffer punishments for ‘swatting’ proposed by Iowa state public safety

DES MOINES — Knowingly reporting fake information about serious crimes to law enforcement agencies in Iowa would be a felony under legislation proposed by an Iowa state agency.

It is among dozens of legislative proposals filed in advance of the 2024 session of the Iowa Legislature, which begins Jan. 8. In the weeks leading up to each year’s session, state lawmakers and state agencies are able to pre-file bills for consideration.

As of Thursday afternoon, 50 bills had been pre-filed and posted by nonpartisan legislative staff. All 50 bills are proposed by state agencies or executive branch offices; none yet had been posted by individual legislators.

For any of the pre-filed bills to become state law, just like any other piece of proposed legislation, they must be approved by majorities in the Iowa House and Iowa Senate, and then be signed into law by the governor.

Here are some of the bills that state agencies are proposing for consideration:

Anti-swatting bill

In March, at least 30 Iowa schools received phone calls warning of school shootings. State public safety officials quickly determined the warnings were fake.

Law enforcement officials call that “swatting,” which is the criminal act of making a false report to law enforcement agencies with the goal of drawing out a large law enforcement response and create chaos and fear at the location.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety, in a letter accompanying its pre-filed bill proposal, said there were 39 swatting incidents in the 2022-2023 school year in Iowa.

In Iowa, knowingly reporting false information about a crime to law enforcement officials is a misdemeanor. The Iowa Department of Public Safety is proposing to increase that penalty to a felony.

Under the proposed bill, knowingly reporting to law enforcement officials false information about certain serious crimes would be a Class D felony, which is punishable up to five years in prison and a fine between $1,025 and $10,245. If the false report results in another person’s serious injury or death, the penalty increases to a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine between $1,370 and $13,660.

In its letter accompanying the proposal, the public safety department says Wisconsin, Ohio and New York recently increased their penalties for swatting. The goal, the letter says, is to “deter bad actors from making hoax or false reports of serious emergency situations that require a large police response.”

“Keeping the public and responding agencies safe is of utmost importance, and these situations put them at risk and are disruptive to the involved community,” the department letter says.

Relaxing hotel inspection requirements

Periodic, required hotel inspections in Iowa would be eliminated under legislation proposed by the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing.

Under the proposed legislation, hotels would be required to undergo inspection only at their opening. After that, the current biennial inspections of Iowa hotels would be eliminated. Hotels would face inspection only once a complaint is filed.

A spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing said the proposal to eliminate required hotel inspections is designed to focus the agency’s resources on more frequent inspections for “higher-risk establishments,” like sushi restaurants, while conducting fewer inspections on “lower-risk establishments.”

Penalties for unpaid campaign finance fines

As of late September, there were $27,520 in unpaid fines from more than 240 campaign finance violations in Iowa dating to 2018, according to a memo prepared by Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board Executive Director Zach Goodrich.

Part of the problem, Goodrich told The Gazette in October, is that the state laws governing campaign finance violations are not sufficiently stringent. The board proposed legislation last session, and is back again this year with a pre-filed bill that would allow the state to suspend the driver’s license of anyone who has a delinquent campaign finance penalty in excess of $250.

“I believe that if we have laws, we should actually enforce them, otherwise get rid of them,” Goodrich told The Gazette in October. “In this instance, the laws serve an important purpose and shouldn’t be repealed. Here, the laws should be enforced because it’s important to hold government officials and political insiders accountable.”

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com