By Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View

2015 was supposed to be the year President Barack Obama would use unilateral executive action to accomplish major goals of his administration that had been blocked by Congress: relaxing deportations, closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and restricting access to guns.

But all three goals stalled. Obama’s executive action on immigration, announced in November 2014, was stymied in the federal courts, and the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether to hear the administration’s appeal. An executive plan to close Guantanamo, rumored to be on the verge...