Yesterday, Congress passed a series of bills to promote gun control and mental health. Among other things, the bills aim to remove “unnecessary legal barriers…that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system,” to “give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun,” and to decide what things shall count as “essential health benefits” (including potential mental-health benefits) “within [Obamacare’s] exchanges.”

Of course, it wasn’t actually Congress that passed any of these things through the constitutionally prescribed legislative process.  It was President Obama who decreed them via “executive actions.”