This is what it sounds like when the Federal Reserve Bank screams: “Much has been written about the various headwinds restraining economic activity over the near term. However, our economy also has other headwinds to confront over the medium- to-longer-term. … the finances of some state and local governments are also under stress and in need of serious adjustments.”  – Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto

SACRAMENTO — Debate over a vaccine bill injected drama into a hearing of the Assembly Health Committee in the California Legislature Tuesday. Legislators ignored parental concerns. And the Capitol sergeants brutalized parents holding infants.

SPRINGFIELD — Lame-duck lawmakers could provide the extra push needed to get public pension changes and Medicaid reforms through the General Assembly this year.

DES MOINES — State lawmakers are exempt from Iowa’s open-meetings and public-records law, which is intended to promote transparency and guarantee that residents have access to their government.

“We’re telling other people to have open meetings, but we don’t have to do this ourselves,” said state Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville.

Iowa’s law requiring government entities to have open meetings, and to make their records available to the public, applies to the state’s executive branch and local governments. The Legislature is exempt because it is a separate and co-equal branch of government, said Scott Sundstrom, an attorney who’s a lobbyist for the Iowa Newspaper Association, a group of more than 300 daily and weekly newspapers.

“There is a constitutional provision that the Legislature is to promulgate its own rules for how it conducts itself. And the Iowa Supreme Court said based on that, the Legislature isn’t subject to these laws,” Sundstrom said. “We know that because in practice, every time there’s a caucus, that violates the open meetings laws. But that law doesn’t apply to the Legislature.”

State lawmakers go into “caucus,” or closed-door meetings with fellow members of the same political party, multiple times each day.

They meet to explain bills, discuss their position on those bills and decide how they will vote. They do this with their full caucus — such as all 60 House Republicans or all 40 House Democrats — and also with their smaller group of members in an individual committee.

Few have complained about the practice, which results in lobbyists and journalists standing in the Statehouse hallways after they’ve been asked to leave a committee room. If anyone did, Sundstrom said they would likely take that complaint to the House or Senate Ethics Committee, which is made up of members of the Legislature.

“I think we probably rely more on the press at the state level, because let’s say we were going to go into session and shut all the doors, I’m pretty sure the press would object, whereas city council people, city council, local supervisors, may not have a member of press in there,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Tom Sands, R-Wapello.

Senate File 430 would create a new seven-member Iowa Public Information Board and an executive director who would address people’s questions and problems about access to government records and meetings, and seek enforcement of the state’s open-records and public-meetings laws.

After six years of stagnation, the bill moved quickly Wednesday through the House Appropriations Committee, 20-5, and the House Ways and Means Committee, 22-2. It now goes to the House floor. The Iowa Senate also approved the bill, 49-0, last year.

Two-thirds of Iowans favor creating a state board to handle residents’ complaints about violations of open meetings and access to government documents, according to a poll of 803 adult Iowans commissioned by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a coalition of journalists, librarians, lawyers, educators and other Iowa that support transparency in government.

The September poll by West Des Moines pollster Selzer & Co. had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Under Senate File 430, the Legislature isn’t the only one that would be exempt from complaints to the Iowa Public Information Board, and the board’s ability to require individuals to go before the board.

Gov. Terry Branstad would be exempt, as well.

“The reason for that is the governor is the chief executive. He’s the highest-ranking official in the executive branch,” said Sundstrom, who also represents the Iowa Broadcasters Association, a 200-member educational organization that serves Iowa radio and television stations. “To have an inferior state agency tell the governor how to conduct himself doesn’t work.”

Sundstrom said the governor would still be subject to the state’s open meetings and public records laws, as he is now. But people who have complaints about the governor’s office would need to file a lawsuit, instead of turn to the new board.

“Without this exemption, this would create a tool that could effectively be used by anyone to disrupt and paralyze the functioning of the governor’s office,” said Branstad’s spokesman, Tim Albrecht.

Also Wednesday, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to remove from the bill a provision that would have allowed the new board to charge Iowans a fee of up to $50 for filing a complaint.

“An Iowan shouldn’t have to put any money forward to get towards a government entity with a complaint that they have regarding open meetings, open records,” said state Rep. Peter Cownie, R-West Des Moines.

Rep. Chuck Isenhart, D-Dubuque, defended the fee, saying the intent is to prevent frivolous claims.

“I think it’s a modest way … for a very small staff and board to be able to manage its workload,” Isenhart said.

Debate continues over where to house the new board.

Rep. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, questioned how this can be an independent agency if it’s under the executive branch. Some lawmakers, like state Rep. Jerry Kearns, D-Keokuk, prefer that it be housed by the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, an agency that handles ethics complaints and receives campaign finance reports.

See SF 430:

See previous Iowa Politics coverage of this bill:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=264269
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=262055

See an Iowa Politics.com five-part series on open records:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=246448