The “Back the Blue” bill moving through the Iowa Legislature was a focus of the final legislative briefing with area lawmakers hosted virtually by the Washington Chamber of Commerce Saturday.

The legislation contains a series of proposals Republicans say show support for law enforcement during civil unrest including making it illegal for someone to shine lasers in the eyes of officers. The bill also calls for limited immunity for motorists in the event they run into a protestor during a public disturbance, which Zoom participant Bethany Glinsman told State Representative Jarad Klein (R) of Keota, a sponsor of the bill, she was disappointed in. Klein says the legislation doesn’t let everyone off the hook, “This does not prevent lawsuits for someone who willfully or recklessly drives into a crowd, the bill’s very clear on that. If there’s somebody that plows into a crowd on purpose or with intent to cause harm, this does not protect them. Who this does protect is that family who’s driving down the interstate and all of a sudden gets caught up in a big group of people who are maybe jumping on other vehicles, yelling, screaming, causing them to be in distress and they’re just trying to get out of there and they hit somebody, you can’t sue them for that.”  

Klein says “Back the Blue” also provides stiffer penalties against people for vandalizing public property during a protest. State Senator Kevin Kinney (D) of Oxford says some penalties in the bill may have gone too far, but says he’ll withhold final judgement of the bill until he reviews it Tuesday prior to the floor debate expected this week.

The legislation also seeks to prevent municipalities from defunding the police, which Kinney says he and many people in his district support, “One of the things that I look at is that my constituents, nearly 80% of them never had a run-in with law enforcement at all, the 60,000 people that I represent and, when you start talking about defunding the police and so forth, those individuals do not like the idea that you’re defending the police.”

State Senator Jeff Reichman (R) of Montrose also participated in the fourth legislative forum, attended by about 10 people. State Representative Joe Mitchell (R) of Mount Pleasant was unable to participate. The 2021 Iowa Legislative Session is anticipated to conclude April 30th.