What’s Happening in Houston?

When I first saw the story, I dismissed it as a hoax. The City of Houston had served subpoenas on local pastors who had participated in a petition drive against a city ordinance, known as HERO, which prohibits discrimination against LGBT persons. The subpoenas demanded that the pastors turn over “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

What could justify such an intrusive request? Not only the pastors’ own statements—that would be troubling enough—but statements the pastors had revised, approved, or just kept in their possession, about homosexuality and gender identity. And about the mayor herself. There must be more to the story, I thought.

It turns out there is a bit more to the story—but the episode is nonetheless very unsettling. When the city rejected the petition on the ground that the signatures were invalid, some opponents of HERO—not the pastors themselves—challenged the city’s decision in court. The city issued the subpoenas in connection with that litigation. The theory, as I understand it, is that because these pastors helped organize the petition drive and hosted meetings, the pastors’ statements about the petition are important. I guess the idea is that the pastors may have said something that induced phony signatures.

Now, given the rules of pretrial discovery, one must concede that there is some plausibility in the city’s argument—some. In an American lawsuit, attorneys can ask for all sorts of information before trial, even if that information is not strictly relevant to the litigation, as long as the information seems reasonably likely to lead to relevant and admissible evidence. This broad standard is meant to allow parties to uncover all the facts. So when the city says it would like to know what the pastors may have said about the petition drive itself, that’s not a completely untenable position, given the freewheeling rules of American pretrial litigation.

But there are other very important considerations. The broad standard for discovery can lead to so-called “fishing expeditions” that seek to harass and intimidate litigants and encourage them to back off. As a result, courts generally have wide discretion to reject requests for information that are overly broad and unduly burdensome to the opposing party. In a context like this one, which raises very sensitive First Amendment concerns, courts must be especially careful.

The pastors have moved to quash the subpoenas. They should and will likely succeed, largely if not completely. Indeed, in response to complaints, including from some defenders of LGBT rights, Mayor Parker and the Houston City Attorney have already indicated that they think the subpoenas are too broad and should be rewritten. (They blame the misunderstanding on pro-bono attorneys the city retained to handle the litigation.) Maybe the court will allow subpoenas with respect to statements directly related to the petition drive, but that’s as far as it’s likely to go. I wonder if the court will allow even that.

Still, even if these pastors succeed in resisting the subpoenas, significant damage has been done. It’s hard to see how this episode will not chill religious and political expression. Most people, quite rationally, want nothing to do with lawsuits and subpoenas. They don’t want to make legal history. The lesson they will draw from the episode is this: If you want to avoid trouble, don’t make politically-charged statements about religious convictions that the government doesn’t approve, even if you’re at a private meeting in your own church. In fact, don’t revise or retain such statements. Otherwise, who knows? You may one day have to lawyer up.