House restores teeth to open-records bill

From Des Moines Register:

The Iowa House today approved a much-improved bill on transparency and open government than the one I wrote about in today’s column.  The legislation, which creates a board to review complaints and enforce Iowa’s Open Meetings and Records Law, made significant strides today.

The floor manager, Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, had proposed an amendment that would have gutted Senate File 430 as passed by the Senate last year.  It would have stripped enforcement powers from the board, leaving an advisory and training council that was in some ways worse than the status quo. It was clear Rogers wasn’t satisfied with this, but he was running into serious objections in his caucus.