Bill would let voters, not supervisors decide on moving county seats

DES MOINES - A state senator wants to make sure voters have a say if a small band of elected officials seek to move a county seat to a new location.

Sen. Rich Taylor, D-Mount Pleasant, chairman of the Senate Local Government Committee, said under home rule in Iowa two supervisors on a three-member county Board of Supervisors currently could vote to move a county's seat of government to a different location - something he thinks should be decided by a vote of the people.

Taylor said the issue came to his attention earlier this year when a member of the Lee County Board of Supervisors proposed an ordinance that would have started the rapid consolidation of the county's two seats into one in Fort Madison. The county courthouse is located in Fort Madison but Lee County has two county seats - one in Fort Madison and one in Keokuk.

The proposed change in Lee County was withdrawn but Taylor said the controversy 'opened a lot of eyes” causing him to study the issue and he was surprised to find that a majority of county officials currently would have the power to move a county seat if they decided to do so.

'I don't think that's what we intended to have happen,” said Taylor, who has introduced Senate File 26 to require that a county board that receives a petition to relocate, consolidate or establish an additional county seat would have two years to come up with a plan which would have to be submitted to voters in the general election of a presidential year. Such a proposal would need to receive at least 60 percent affirmative votes of the total cast to pass.

'I think that should be something that is up to the voters, that it actually goes out to a vote. That's what I'm trying to accomplish there” in proposing Senate File 26, the Mount Pleasant Democrat said.

Bill Heckroth, a former state senator who now lobbies for the Iowa State Association of County Supervisors - which opposes the legislation - said his association's legal research has determined there is noting in the Iowa code addressing the issue.

'So, in essence, if you look at it from a home rule standpoint, it would say if the code has not addressed it, it's up to the county to decide how they want to do that,” Heckroth said.

'Keep in mind there is a difference between locating a county seat and locating a courthouse,” he added. 'The courthouse is under the court administration. They have the decision making as to where the courthouse is, but the county seat there is nothing in the Iowa Code that addresses how that decision is made.”

So far, a Senate subcommittee has not been appointed to consider Taylor's proposed legislation, which was filed in the first week of the 86th General Assembly.