One reason so many Americans entrusted Barack Obama with the presidency was his pledge to correct the prior administration’s tendency to push unilateral executive power beyond constitutional and customary limits.

Yet last week’s recess appointments of Richard Cordray as the first chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the President’s National Labor Relations Board—taken together with other aggressive and probably unconstitutional executive actions—suggest that this president lacks a proper respect for constitutional checks and balances.