Reynolds Settles Public Records Suit

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by journalists who sought to require her office to respond to public record requests. A state panel agreed Wednesday to pay more than $100,000 in attorney fees to settle the cases. Reynolds settled the lawsuit about two months after the Iowa Supreme Court refused to dismiss the case filed by two media organizations and a nonprofit advocacy group. The court unanimously rejected the governor’s argument that her office wasn’t required to respond in a timely manner to record requests and that she could bypass the state’s open records law by simply ignoring the requests. The organizations filed the lawsuit in 2021.