A decade ago, the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing (DIAL) stopped following the requirement in state law that it inspect all hotels and motels in the state at least once every two years. The department didn’t inform the public or lawmakers that it stopped routine inspections in 2014. That fact didn’t come to light until it was uncovered by Clark Kauffman of the Iowa Capital Dispatch in October 2022.
This year, Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate are addressing the problem by introducing bills to eliminate the law.
On Tuesday, the Republican majority in the Iowa House passed HF 2426, which repeals the current requirement in Iowa Code for biennial hotel inspection, instead only requiring a property be inspected “[u]pon receipt of a verified complaint signed by a guest of a hotel and stating facts indicating the place is in an insanitary condition.”
Since it stopped conducting biennial inspection in 2014, DIAL’s standard procedure has been to inspect new hotels and motels prior to their opening, and existing properties only in response to a complaint being filed, department director Larry Johnson told Kauffman in October 2022. The director was unable to explain the decision-making process that led to the change, because it occurred during the Branstad administration and was in place when Johnson was appointed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2019. There are 580 licensed hotels in Iowa subject to DIAL’s jurisdiction.
“So the biggest thing that comes to my mind is the fact that it’s impossible to say what issues have gone undetected in Iowa’s uninspected hotels,” Rep. Jeff Cooling, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, said during the floor debate on Tuesday.
Republican Rep. Craig Johnson of Independence, the bill’s manager, conceded that the examples of broken smoke detectors and bed bug infestations that Cooling cited from the hotel inspections DIALS has conducted in recent years sounded bad, but suggested market forces were more effective at making hotels comply with health and safety laws.
“I’m not sure where these hotels are at and those do sound horrible, yep,” he said. “But I think in the big picture of things, those hotels that are operating like that, their clients probably aren’t returning. I’ve had bad experiences in hotels, out of state — I don’t go back. That is my consumer choice.”
The Iowa House passed HF 2426 on a party-line vote, 66-34. It now goes to the Iowa Senate. The Senate State Government Committee passed its own version of the bill on a party-line vote earlier this month.
