Court asks: Does Iowa DOT have authority to regulate traffic cameras?

Iowa Supreme Court justices grilled lawyers Tuesday about whether the Iowa Department of Transportation has the power to regulate traffic cameras.

There is no Iowa law that specifically gives the DOT jurisdiction over traffic cameras, but lawyers for the state argued Tuesday at oral arguments before the court that the department's general authority to maintain safe highways allows it to regulate where and how cameras are used for traffic enforcement.

Lawyers for the cities of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Muscatine disagree. They said Tuesday that the DOT's general authority isn't sufficient.

The case stems from a 2015 DOT order directing the cities to remove certain traffic cameras because the department said the cameras conflicted with state regulations. The cities claim data shows the cameras have improved safety on the stretches of road they were set up to monitor.

"The question is, what authority do you have from the Legislature?" Justice Edward Mansfield asked a lawyer for the state Tuesday. "Because the DOT does not get to make laws, it only gets to issue rules when the Legislature authorized it."

If traffic cameras cause drivers to brake suddenly, potentially leading to more crashes, as the DOT argued, could the department also regulate whether local law enforcement could set up speed traps on the side of the road? Mansfield asked.

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"I don’t think the DOT could ever lose control of its authority to make sure highways are kept in a reasonably safe condition," said Assistant Iowa Attorney General Richard Mull, who argued the case for the department. "Otherwise, the DOT is not doing their job."

Chief Justice Mark Cady asked Mull which parts of the law allow the power claimed to regulate traffic cameras.

"We can’t apply this in a way that’s going to give unlimited authority for the DOT to regulate anything they want," Cady said. "We have to find some association with the legislative concept that they are giving to you."

The Iowa Senate this year passed a bill that would ban the use of traffic cameras in Iowa, while the House passed a different bill that would regulate cameras. Neither chamber has taken up the other's bill and it's not clear whether any action will be taken before the session adjourns.

Mull pointed to several current parts of the Iowa Code that provide the DOT with its authority. Each of those code sections point toward the department having broad power to regulate road safety, he said.

"You can glean from each of these broad grants of authority the duty and authority to keep the roads in a reasonably safe condition," he said.

But the cities argued that regulating traffic cameras doesn't fall under that mandate, and that doing so is a violation of the cities' "home rule" powers.

"If this sort of unfettered position is taken by the IDOT, then our law enforcement is hamstrung in what they can do in their own jurisdictions," said Michelle Mackel-Wiederanders, a lawyer for the cities.

Home rule allows cities to issue regulations and exercise governing powers in areas where the Legislature has not specifically restricted their ability to do so. The cities say home rule means they should be allowed to use traffic cameras to enforce local traffic laws since the Legislature hasn't acted to prevent them.

Lawyers for the DOT say agency rules have the force of law and take precedence over local ordinances. The cities' argument would turn that rule on its head, the department argued.

"Iowa home rule was never intended to serve as a sword to void state laws," lawyers for the DOT wrote in a brief to the court. "The cities appear to envision a 'super' home rule that lays state regulations and agency action to waste."

Jim Larew, a lawyer from Iowa City who has brought several traffic camera cases to the Iowa Supreme Court and attended the oral arguments Tuesday, said the issue of how specific the Legislature should be when delegating power to state agencies is a balancing act. Some areas of code, like taxes, are highly specific, he said. Others are not.

"There are tensions there because you don’t want a state agency just to be running amok," Larew said. "And, at the same time, if we had to have statutes that covered every contingency, you wouldn’t have enough space on a bookshelf to have the code of Iowa."

Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman, who also attended the oral arguments Tuesday, defended his city's use of cameras.

"The data from Cedar Rapids validates that they’ve reduced the number of collisions, reduced the severity of collisions and prevented deaths on that stretch of (Interstate Highway) 380," he said.

Court will decide several cases

Tuesday's proceedings mean the Supreme Court now has four traffic camera cases pending. Last fall, the justices considered two other cases out of Cedar Rapids. They have not issued a decision in those cases.

And also Tuesday, the court accepted an appeal in a separate class-action lawsuit challenging the process that Gatso USA, the contractor hired by Des Moines to collect speeding tickets, uses to mete out fines under the Des Moines ordinance.

Legal experts were hesitant to predict how the justices would rule in the cases, but said it was unusual for the court to take up so many cases that deal with the same subject at the same time.

If the court is preparing to issue a broad ruling on traffic cameras, it could benefit from hearing all four cases before issuing a decision, said Mark Kende, a law professor at Drake University who specializes in constitutional law.

"The court can theoretically pull in different strands from the different cases and resolve as many strands as they want and do so in a way that’s coherent," Kende said.

At the same time, if the court is planning to issue four more limited decisions, it still makes sense for the justices to educate themselves on the issues in each case and how they relate to each other, he said.

"They could write completely separate opinions but they might benefit from having heard all the cases because they’ve been able to get into the fine points," he said.

Either way, the fact that so many traffic camera cases have reached the Iowa Supreme Court means the public has gotten the court's attention, Kende said.

"To some extent, that’s an achievement for people who are not fans of these devices," he said.