Iowa
From the 50 State Visitor Guide:
Iowa Code 2019 §§692A.101 through 692A.130. 441 I.A.C. §103.3(692A) 661 I.A.C. §§83.1(692A) through 83.5 (692A)
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
5 business days for initial registration, updates, and visitors who enter the state. §§692A.104, 692A.105.
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
Residence restrictions: Registrants with convictions involving minors for “aggravated sexual abuse” in the 1st or 2nd degree, or in the 3rd degree except for a conviction under I.C. §709.4(2)(c)(4), may not reside w/in 2,000 ft. of daycare center.
Presence restriction: Registrants with convictions involving minors may not loiter within 300 ft. of, or be present at, any school, day care center, public library, or any place intended primarily for the use of minors, unless certain permissions are obtained. No registrant may loiter, volunteer, or be employed at residence facility for dependent adults.
Local governments are pre-empted from adopting more restrictive requirements. §692A.127.
Procedure for removal from registry after departure is set forth in §692A.106.
Duration & updates:
10 years to life. Updates depend on tier level: TI – annually, TII – every 6 mo. TIII – quarterly. §§692A.104
January 2024 – Traveling to my “primary residence” state as a visitor
Iowa allows five business days for initial registration, updates, and visitors who enter the state. That’s a fairly short time period. However, there appears to be no limit per month or year.
While in-state as a visitor you may need to be a little careful if your offense involved a minor because if so you may not loiter within 300 ft. of, or be present at a school, day care center, public library, or any place intended primarily for the use of minors, unless certain permissions are obtained. No registrant may loiter, volunteer, or be employed at residence facility for dependent adults.
Here’s a piece of good news: Local governments are pre-empted from adopting more restrictive requirements. §692A.127. Therefore, wherever you go in Iowa at least you know what the rules are.
Also, you may have noticed that there is no prohibition against being at or loitering near a public park, museum, or historic site – unless of course it includes a “place intended primarily for the use of minors,” like a playground, in which case you just need to stay 300 feet away from that place. Outside Iowa City there is a shopping mall that includes the Iowa Children’s Museum. The food court is right next door. If you ever find yourself in this shopping mall, you can’t go to the children’s museum or loiter within 300 feet of it, but the rest of the mall is okay and no one has ever accused me of "loitering" just because I had lunch at the food court.
So you may be wondering – why I would want to leave the warmth of Florida and travel to Iowa in January in the middle of a blizzard and below zero temperatures? Also, for those of you who, like me, have moved away from the state where you offended, are there any lessons to be learned from my experience traveling as a visitor to my new “primary residence” state? Did I have to “check in” even though I was there for fewer than five business days? etc.
As to the first question, it turns out that there is an interesting difference between Florida and Iowa (aside from the obvious weather difference). Florida doesn’t let anyone with a prior sexual offense vote, whereas Iowa does. And as I always say, no one can appreciate their right to vote more than someone who’s had that right taken away. One of my first acts as an Iowan was to register to vote.
Furthermore, as a Iowa voter I am eligible to do something very few Americans can do, which is to participate in the Iowa Caucuses. And another thing I am fond of saying is that my recent life experience has brought me to a point where if there is something I am allowed to do – that the cops can’t stop me from doing – that is a thing I will definitely do.
So a couple of months before the caucuses I booked non-refundable plane reservations from Orlando to Eastern Iowa Airport (lay-over in Chicago), departing Friday January 12 and returning Tuesday the 16th. Because Monday Jan. 15 was a holiday, I would be in Iowa for only two partial business days, far fewer than the five business days that would have triggered an obligation on my part to “check in” at my local sheriff’s department. Instead, all I needed to do was report my travel as required by the state of Florida, where I was traveling from.
Little did I know that when the time came for me to go to Iowa it would be in the middle of a blizzard with a foot of snow on the ground, drifts blowing everywhere and temperatures below zero. My Friday flights were canceled and I got rebooked onto the same flights the following day – with one big difference, to wit my 1:00 flight from Chicago was stand-by and they booked me on a back-up flight that didn’t leave Chicago until 7:00 pm.
So here’s a question: I told Florida I was definitely leaving on Friday, but I didn’t do that. I left on Saturday instead. Was I required to go back down to the Orange County sheriff’s department and redo my travel report? Answer – I couldn’t do it anyway because the sheriff’s department was closed for the holiday weekend and Florida requires this change to be reported in person. So I just did everything I could to get myself to my travel destination as fast as possible.
Sure enough I didn’t get on the 1:00 flight, which meant my Cedar Rapids car rental crashed. The airline offered to re-book me to a 2:15 flight to Moline IL, which is “sort of” close to Iowa City, so I gave up my 7:00 ticket. Unfortunately that flight was unable to land in Moline and got re-directed right back to Chicago! So at 6:00 pm I rented a car in Chicago and set out for Iowa City in a blinding blizzard.
Wow that was scary! When I arrived at my home it was midnight and -15 degrees. But now I want to point out that by crossing the Iowa state line at about 10:30 pm I had spent less than one day in Illinois and had not spent the night there. In doing so I had avoided using up any of my precious allowable three days per calendar year in Illinois (see my Illinois blog). I certainly didn’t want to do that in the first month of the 2024 calendar year!
Also, by arriving in Iowa late Saturday night instead of Friday afternoon I would now be there only one partial business day – Tuesday – when I’d have to get back on the road at 7:00 am (temperature -13) if I had any hope of returning the rental car in Chicago at noon. I’d be out of state before my Iowa sheriff’s department even opened that day. I also had to totally blow off my non-refundable flight from Cedar Rapids.
Now I will say a few words about the Iowa Caucuses, my reason for spending hundreds of dollars to fly into a blizzard. It was actually pretty interesting. Even though my party wasn’t holding a presidential preference vote because they have an actual incumbent president instead of an insurrectionist ex-president, they conducted other party business like selecting delegates to the party’s state convention (in March) and formulating party platform statements.
So the following morning I left early, I did get to Chicago on time, and my flight arrived back in Orlando on time. Tadahhhh!
Previous travel to Iowa as a visitor – February and March 2021
In February & March 2021 I flew into Eastern Iowa Airport and stayed each time at a motel from Thursday afternoon thru the following Tuesday morning. That makes four business days (including two partial days) and a weekend each time, deliberately less than Iowa’s registration trigger of five business days.
I had a specific purpose for visiting Iowa that cold winter. I had decided that Iowa was a good location to establish a summer home to serve as a base for my future summer travel. Florida, after all, isn’t at all centrally located with respect to cross-country travel – but Iowa is. And yes, I did purchase a home in Iowa, and have registered it as my new “primary residence” in Florida’s registry.
That means my Iowa home is my residence for more than 50% of each calendar year. However I still flee to Florida for the winter, so I changed all three of my registered addresses in Florida to “open-ended temporary residences” which means I can stay there any time I want as long as I report to the local sheriff’s department within 48 hours of my arrival.
As far as my cross-country travel is concerned, my move just transfers the problem of getting permission to leave town to my new local sheriff’s department in Iowa. And in the case of Iowa this introduces a new complication because unlike Florida and many other states, Iowa’s registry law explicitly, but clumsily, addresses out-of-state travel. It says:
“[A] sex offender, within five business days of a change, shall also appear in person to notify the sheriff of the county of principal residence [i.e. the principle residence in Iowa], of any location in which the offender is staying when away from the principal residence of the offender for more than five days, by identifying the location and the period of time the offender is staying in such location.” 692A.105 IS.
While I was at my new Iowa sheriff’s department registering, getting photographed, fingerprinted and providing a DNA sample, I took the opportunity to ask how travel was going to work. I pointed out that although I can always provide a destination when traveling, there is no way I’ll be able provide locations and addresses ahead of time for every campground or motel room I might be staying at along the way.
The lady behind the bullet-proof glass stated that their policy for this type of travel is that I will need to keep a travel log for each trip, which I will need to turn in upon my return. As you know from reading elsewhere on this blog, I recommend you always keep a travel log as well as all receipts just in case you need to prove your whereabouts, so this sheriff’s department requirement, while ridiculous, turns out not to be a problem for me or anyone following my recommendations.
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