The Dirty Dozen is a Cato Institute

Cato Institute

The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...

 book, written by Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy is the chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute and the organizer and financier behind District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court Case that established the Second Amendment as affirming an individual right to gun ownership. He is a Cato senior fellow and an author and pundit...

 and William Mellor

William Mellor

William Mellor was a left-wing British journalist.Mellor joined the Daily Herald in 1913 as a journalist, and was imprisoned during the First World War as a conscientious objector, returning to the Herald on his release. A Guild Socialist during the 1910s, he worked closely with G. D. H. Cole,...

 and released in May 2008, about twelve U.S. Supreme Court decisions that were viewed as greatly undermining individual freedom by expanding the power of government. The book was the subject of many reviews and much press. It was released around the time that Levy gained media attention as the organizer and financier behind District of Columbia v. Heller

District of Columbia v. Heller

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes in federal enclaves, such as...

.

Cases Criticized

The decisions criticized in the book are:

• Wickard v. Filburn
  Wickard v. Filburn
  Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 , was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that recognized the power of the federal government to regulate economic activity. A farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for on-farm consumption. The U.S...
  
   (1942)
• Helvering v. Davis
  Helvering v. Davis
  Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that Social Security was not a contributory insurance program. The Court defended the constitutionality of the Social Security Act of 1935, requiring only that welfare spending be for the common benefit...
  
   (1937)
• Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell
  Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell
  Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 , was a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that Minnesota's suspension of creditor's remedies was not in violation of the United States Constitution. Blaisdell was decided during the height of the Great Depression and has...
  
   (1934)
• Whitman v. American Trucking Association, Inc. (2001)
• McConnell v. Federal Election Commission
  McConnell v. Federal Election Commission
  McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 , is a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 , often referred to as the McCain–Feingold Act....
  
   (2003)
• United States v. Miller
  United States v. Miller
  United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 , was the first Supreme Court of the United States decision to involve the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Miller is a controversial decision in the ongoing American gun politics debate, as both sides claim that it supports their...
  
   (1939)
• Korematsu v. United States
  Korematsu v. United States
  Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II....
  
   (1944)
• Bennis v. Michigan
  Bennis v. Michigan
  Bennis v. Michigan, 516 U.S. 442 , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that innocent owner defense is not constitutionally mandated by Fourteenth Amendment Due Process in cases of civil forfeiture....
  
   (1996)
• Kelo v. City of New London
  Kelo v. City of New London
  Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further economic development...
  
   (2005)
• Penn Central Transport Co. v. New York (1978)
• United States v. Caroline Products (1938)
• Grutter v. Bollinger
  Grutter v. Bollinger
  Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School...
  
  .(2003)