Roosevelt bars federal workers from petitioning Congress directly

President Theodore Roosevelt issued executive orders in 1902 and again in 1909 prohibiting federal employees from communicating with Congress except through their department heads, under threat of dismissal. The orders applied to roughly 400,000 postal workers and civil servants who faced firing for petitioning their elected representatives — the same activity the First Amendment was written to protect. President William Howard Taft extended and strengthened the restrictions, making the gag orders the governing policy for all executive branch employees from 1902 to 1912.