Citizen Police Review boards are in jeopardy

A bill approved this week by the Iowa Senate making changes to local civil service investigations would also eliminate citizen police review boards.

Under the bill, Senate File 2325, no city with a civil service commission would be allowed to “establish a board or other entity for the purpose of citizen review of the conduct of police officers.”

The bill would put the future of review boards in Iowa City, established in the late 1990s, and in Cedar Rapids, established in 2021, in jeopardy.

During floor debate, Sen. Janice Weiner, D-Iowa City, said the review board language was a “late addition” to the bill. It passed 37-9, with several Democrats voting in favor due to union support for other provisions in the bill. Weiner was not among them.

“I don’t think it’s the role of this body to take away local control and strip communities, that already have them, of the citizen police review boards,” Weiner said during debate.

So why get rid of review boards? After listening to the bill’s floor manager, Sen. Scott Webster, R-Bettendorf, it seems the motivation is pure partisan politics.

“It wasn’t that long ago we heard from the far left that we needed to defund police officers,” said Webster, who added that an unnamed “Iowa City Democrat” wanted to cut the police budget.

“Colleagues, today we’re going to defend our law enforcement from political interventions by citizen review boards and the media frenzy that goes along with them,” Webster said, arguing that “media frenzy” ignores the “truth” and “facts.”

At the risk of being frenzied, we see citizen review boards as a needed tool allowing public oversight of public employees. And the fact is, in Cedar Rapids, the review board was painstakingly created in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the protests that followed.

Cedar Rapids’ board is the product of cooperation between the police, city officials and Advocates for Social Justice, which led peaceful protests in the city. When Webster argued on the Senate floor that review boards don’t provide due process and don’t protect “confidential information,” it’s clear he has no familiarity with Cedar Rapids’ review board and its procedures.

Scoring political points is not more important than giving citizens a critical role in oversight. The House should scrap this latest shot at local control.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com