Facing a class-action lawsuit, Oregon DHS subpoenas senator’s emails before she testifies 

Oregon Department of Human Services attorneys have subpoenaed nine years of state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin’s correspondence with hundreds of people, including foster children, lawyers, journalists and even celebrity Paris Hilton. 

The agency’s vast subpoena surfaced last week in the federal class-action lawsuit filed against the Oregon Department of Human Services on behalf of Oregon foster children in 2019 by Disability Rights Oregon and A Better Childhood, a national advocacy organization. The lawsuit alleges the state has failed children in the foster care system in myriad ways, such as placement of children in hotels and other inadequate, abusive or unsafe settings. If successful, the lawsuit would force the state to make systemic policy changes in how it takes care of foster children. 

Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, is set to testify on behalf of the plaintiffs as a witness in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in Eugene in two weeks. For years, Gelser Blouin, chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, has been a longtime advocate for vulnerable children and has frequently proposed and championed legislation to force the state’s foster care and child welfare systems to improve their care.

“I think it’s shocking for lawyers for a state government agency to target a sitting state legislator in this way and try and intimidate her from testifying,” said Tom Stenson, deputy legal director for Disability Rights Oregon.

A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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The state has spent years haggling over what documents plaintiffs can access and trying to get the case thrown out at a cost to Oregon taxpayers of $18 million as of February. And in its latest move: On April 24, the state’s private attorneys in the case subpoenaed Gelser Blouin for what’s likely to be thousands of pages of her correspondence, including emails and texts, dating to January 2015. 

The request has asked for correspondence with current and former foster children, advocates, attorneys for the plaintiffs, their paralegals and support staff and others, such as court-appointed special advocates for children, physicians and social workers. The Oregon Department of Human Services also wants to see her communications with reporters for Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive which have written extensively about problems in the foster care system. The news organizations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the subpoena by mid-day Tuesday.

The subpoena also requested Gelser Blouin’s communications with Paris Hilton, a well-known celebrity and national advocate for children’s issues.

In an interview, Gelser Blouin said she doesn’t believe the records contain surprises for the agency because she passes any concerns she gets to the state child welfare. 

As for Paris Hilton, Gelser Blouin said she’s visited with her about policy and has met with her while on trips to Washington, D.C. But Gelser Blouin said the lawsuit isn’t something that has ever come up. Gelser Blouin praised Hilton’s advocacy on issues like appropriate care for children in congregant facilities.

In 2021, Hilton testified in support of a bill to regulate child restraints before Gelser Blouin’s Senate Human Services Committee and shared her experiences of physical and emotional abuse while living in youth residential facilities as a teenager. In her account, Hilton spoke about how she was handcuffed and taken to a facility.

“Paris and I have spent a lot of time talking about policy in general – not necessarily Oregon policies,” Gelser Blouin said. “I’ve never talked about this case with her.”

‘Try and distract people’

Stenson, with Disability Rights Oregon, said the agency’s pursuit of emails with Paris Hilton are a sign that DHS has nothing to show the public that points to progress with the foster care system.

“If DHS had real successes, like real tangible successes, to point to, they’d be talking about all their successes,” he said. “When you don’t have a good case, you try and distract people. You try and throw out these other stories. You try and make it about whether Senator Gelser Blouin is emailing Paris Hilton.”

Gelser Blouin said she’ll comply with all legally appropriate requests for records and is searching for a private attorney to help her respond to the subpoena.

“Meanwhile, my office is searching for potentially responsive records spanning dozens of individuals, children, attorneys, media outlets and other entities over the past nine years so that I am ready to comply with any parts of the subpoena the court deems should move forward,” Gelser Blouin said in a statement. She said the lawyers also sent her office a separate public records request, which will also be processed.

The plaintiffs have filed a motion to quash the subpoena, calling it a last-minute attempt to harass a witness and not a legitimate attempt to get evidence. 

“It’s just a big fishing expedition to try and embarrass the senator to try and make it hard for her and to shift the narrative this case away from ‘Are kids safe? Are kids getting the services they need? Are they finding safe places to live?’” Stenson said.

A judge has not yet ruled on the motion. 

If the subpoena is successful, everything will be due by 9 a.m. May 10, slightly more than two weeks after Gelser Blouin received the subpoena. At that time, Gelser Blouin is ordered to produce the records at the Portland office of Markowitz Herbold, the private law firm representing the state. That’s also just three days before the trial starts.