The Iowa Freedom of Information Council’s pocket-size booklet contains the text of Chapters 21, 22 and 23 of the Iowa Code and questions and answers about the laws. We charge $2 each for the booklet to defray printing costs (or you can view the entire text below).
For copies of this publication or further information, contact:
Iowa Freedom of Information Council
P.O. Box 8002
Des Moines, IA 50301(515) 745-0041
IowaFOICouncil@gmail.com
Quick links:
- Rules of thumb for Chapter 21
- Chapter 21
- Questions about Chapter 21
- Rules of thumb for Chapter 22
- Chapter 22
- Questions about Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Questions about Chapter 23
View as PDF: Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23
Introduction
This handbook is the 16th edition of a publication designed to help keep Iowans abreast of the requirements of the state’s open meetings and open records laws, Chapter 21, Chapter 22 and Chapter 23 of the Code of Iowa. This edition incorporates changes made in the chapters by the Legislature in 2013 and 2014.
This handbook also includes the text of Iowa Code Chapter 23, the Iowa Public Information Board Act. The board was created in July 2012 and became fully operational on July 1, 2013. The board and its staff fill a longstanding need by providing a specialized resource for Iowa citizens and government officials with questions and concerns about Iowa’s openness or sunshine laws. The board has the authority to give both formal and informal advice, to attempt to settle disputes about meetings and records, and to act to enforce the laws. The agency already has handled hundreds of questions and complaints.
At least two points are central to understanding how the sunshine laws work:
Iowa law assumes that meetings and records are open. Iowans do not have to make a case to attend a governmental meeting or to see a public record. To the contrary, meetings must be open and records must be available for inspection unless the case for closure is specified in law. The Iowa Supreme Court has been adamant on this point, citing, for example, 22.8(3), which notes that most records are open to public inspection, “even though such examination may cause inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials or others.”
Iowa laws provide a general approach — that of assumed openness — and establish guidelines regarding when a meeting can be (not must be) closed and what records are confidential. The laws provide a framework to help reasonable people ensure that public business is conducted in the public eye.
The laws provide a framework for managing business by public agencies. The provisions for posting tentative agendas, keeping minutes of meetings, and dealing with personnel issues, etc., are instructive for any organization, public or private. Unfortunately, citizens and the news media do not faithfully attend meetings of public agencies. Meeting just by themselves, public officials may lapse into informal ways of handling business, a habit that will ill-serve them when major or controversial issues put them in the spotlight. It is better to adhere to open meeting law protocols at all times, so that when difficult issues arise the focus can be on the issues and not on what procedures must be followed under Chapter 21.
Prior to the passage of the Iowa Public Information Board Act, often the only effective recourse for an aggrieved citizen who believed a government agency had improperly denied access to a meeting or record was to take the government officials to court. While that remedy still exists, the Iowa Public Information Board provides a speedier, cheaper and less confrontational avenue for resolving disputes.
Chapters 21 and 22 also provide ample protection for public officials who rely upon legal advice in interpreting finer points of the law, and the Iowa Public Information Board provides yet another valuable resource in that area.
This handbook is published by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a consortium of journalists, librarians, educators, lawyers and business leaders concerned about openness in government.
Kathleen Richardson, then the executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, supervised the updating of the most recent edition of the booklet. The following individuals have also provided valuable contributions to the handbook over the years: Herb Strentz, who was executive secretary of the Iowa FOI Council from its founding in 1976 until his retirement in 2000; Des Moines attorney Michael Giudicessi, and attorney Keith Luchtel, who served as the Iowa Newspaper Association’s lobbyist at the Statehouse for many years and who was the first executive director of the Iowa Public Information Board. The offices of the Iowa Attorney General and Iowa Ombudsman also have provided feedback on content.
Copies of the handbook are available at cost from the Iowa FOI Council. Contact (515) 745-0041 or IowaFOICouncil@gmail.com.
Thousands of copies of this booklet have been distributed by the Iowa FOI Council since the first edition was published in 1978 to help introduce Iowans to the open meetings law that took effect Jan. 1, 1979. The third edition in 1986 included material on the Iowa public records law, as have all subsequent editions.
Over the years, the handbook has become an invaluable resource for Iowa government officials who seek to follow the letter and the spirit of the sunshine laws, and for all Iowans who want to ensure their rights to open government.