As the 2020 legislative session has come to an end, Senator Rich Taylor reflects on the decisions made and legislation passed. The Justice Reform Bill passed unanimously through the House and Senate and was signed by Governor Kim Reynolds within a day. This bill prohibits most chokeholds used by law enforcement officers, allows Iowa’s Attorney General to investigate deaths caused by law enforcement officers, and does not allow officers fired for misconduct to work as officers in the state of Iowa. While Taylor believes this is a step in the right direction, he wants further discussions to be had, “We put quite a bit of thought into it, but in my opinion it’s a start. We’re a long ways away from being done with this. We can’t as a legislative body, we can’t say, ‘Well, we did something last year, so now it’s all over.’ We’ve got to get into this, into the meat of it, and make sure that all of our law enforcement is doing things right. If they have a problem with a certain officer, they need to take care of it. They can’t just brush things under the rug and think they’re going to go away.”

Taylor was present when Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law, “I think it gave them a sense of understanding that we are all in this together and we are willing to work together to make Iowa better. The people that were in the gallery were an awful lot of younger people from all colors, Black, White, everybody was there. It just felt like a big weight had been lifted off of our shoulders that we were finally bringing this out in the light as a problem and acknowledging it was and is a problem and that we are moving forward with it.” Taylor believes the next legislative session will be filled with tough conversations, but ones that need to happen in order to keep improving the bills that were created during this session.