Biden's Orders Continue the Presidency's Slide Toward Elective Monarchy

"Ease up on the executive actions, Joe," The New York Times urged recently inaugurated President Biden last week. While supportive of the president's broadly progressive agenda, the newspaper's editorial board found his flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions both troubling and vulnerable to easy reversal by future presidents. "This is no way to make law," the Times added.

Unfortunately, creeping rule-by-decree has become common for presidents, and Biden's impatience with the normal frustrations of the legislative process builds on the conduct of his predecessors. While partisans tend to...