Houston pastors sue mayor over civil rights violations

HOUSTON—A group of pastors filed a civil rights lawsuit on Monday against Houston Mayor Annise Parker, accusing her of voter suppression and intimidation.

The new suit targets Parker personally, not the city, and seeks validation from a state court that she did violate the pastors’ civil rights. The pastors also want compensation for the $500,000 in legal fees incurred for an earlier legal fight, they contend, never should have happened.

“While feigning a sincere belief in equal rights for all persons, defendant Parker decided to crush—under color of state law—the civil rights of each of the plaintiffs in an unconstitutional and unlawful manner,” wrote pastors’ attorney Andy Taylor in the court filing.

Last year, the pastors sued Parker and city administrators for dismissing thousands of signatures on a referendum petition to repeal the Equal Rights Ordinance, a measure making sexual orientation and gender identity protected classes. As a result of Parker’s actions, the petition failed, but not before City Secretary Anna Russell certified the requisite number of signatures to qualify the measure for a city-wide vote. But Parker and then-City Attorney David Feldman dismissed Russell’s analysis, doing their own certification and throwing out a majority of the collected signatures.

The pastors lost their suit at the district level and the case was on appeal when the Texas Supreme Court ruled July 24 on a plea from the plaintiffs for emergency relief. The high court directed the Houston City Council to abide by its charter, which says only the city secretary can certify petitions, and vote to repeal the ordinance or put it on the ballot. Ruling “the legislative power reserved to the people of Houston is not being honored,” the court ordered the city to act by Aug. 24 or be forced to do so.

The Houston City Council is scheduled to vote on the ordinance Wednesday. Parker has grudgingly agreed to put it on the Nov. 3 ballot. During the debate over the ordinance in May 2014, Parker said she would not allow anyone to vote on her “civil rights.” Parker, a lesbian, said the ordinance was about her.

Taylor said the Texas Supreme Court directive vindicated his clients and all who worked to gather almost 55,000 signatures for the referendum. In a statement issued Monday, Parker refused to address chargers of wrong-doing.

“This new lawsuit is not about civil rights or religious freedom,” she said. “It’s about politics.”

And she accused the pastors of living in the past and fomenting discrimination.

“We are a diverse mixture of residents who get along and are accepting of each other’s differences,” Parker said. “The ongoing effort by this group threatens to hurt that image and our progress.”

Parker and LGBT advocates claim repeal of the short-lived Equal Rights Ordinance would cast a pall over the city, driving away businesses and causing events like the Super Bowl to recoil and relocate. But without the ordinance, Houston surpassed Los Angeles and New York in 2012 as the most ethnically diverse city in the nation, according to a study by Rice University.

And it is a racially, culturally, and politically diverse group of pastors who have filed suit against Parker. Hispanic, African-American, and Vietnamese pastors joined the Houston Area Pastors Council (HAPC) in the new lawsuit.

In her statement, Parker derided the plaintiffs as a “small group,” but HAPC represents more than 200 senior pastors in the greater Houston area. The organization spearheaded the referendum petition and supported the plaintiffs in the 2014 lawsuit.

Buoyed by last week’s Supreme Court decision, Taylor said the pastors wanted to draw attention to Parker’s abuse of power as an elected official and hold her accountable, especially after pro-bono attorneys working for the city subpoenaed the sermons and extensive communications of five Houston pastors.

This week’s suit also seeks compensation for expenses incurred during the original lawsuit. Taylor, who did not work pro bono during the first phase of the trial, believed the simple case would cost his clients about $50,000. But the city retained about 12 pro-bono attorneys from high-profile law firms to defend its case. Costs for the pastors and their non-profit organization soon soared to $500,000.

Because Parker is being sued as a private citizen, not a representative of the city, it’s not clear who will pay her attorney fees and the compensation should she lose. Taylor said that will have to be a discussion between Parker and the city attorney’s office.