Moves Magazine advocates for women’s rights, social fairness and equal opportunity to its readers. Since starting eighteen years ago, the ethos of the publication—and what serves as its beating heart—has been to always empower women: Lift up, encourage, but most of all, to call out the patriachy in the US.

The ‘Moves Mentor’ award is in recognition of, and to specifically highlight, the role individual women leaders play in shaping and forming the next generation; the energy, experience and expertise used in mentoring today’s millennials into tomorrow’s executives.

At the 2019 Moves Mentor Awards Luncheon. Orange is the New Black star Taylor Schilling gave a stirring keynote while award winners Christy Pambianchi, Margaret Larezos, Tia Silas, Julie Larson-Green, Smita Pillai, Col. Lynn Marm, and Barbara Whye inspired the handpicked guests

The Constitution was and is an excellent foundation for the stability and well being of the nation and its citizens. However as the first ten Amendments to the original, the Bill of Rights, and the seventeen additional changes show, it wasn’t and isn’t cast in stone. Former US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens outlines its formation and framework and proposes six ways to save the United States of America… before we have a catastrophe.

The 28th Amendment by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens

According to its preamble the Constitution of the United States was established by “the People” — not by the states — “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .” As Abraham Lincoln perceptively observed, it created a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

The Union created by the Constitution was unquestionably “more perfect” than the one formed by the states when they signed the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles there was no central government authorized to resolve disputes among individual citizens, to tax or to impose any direct obligations on individuals, or to regulate commerce between or among the separate states. Like a treaty among multiple sovereigns, the Articles defined obligations that the former colonies assumed in their dealings with one another.

That article authorizes two methods of proposing new amendments — by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a convention for proposing amendments called by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states; and two methods of ratifying amendments — by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, or by conventions in three-fourths of the states (this latter method has never been successfully used). Article V also prohibited two kinds of amendments. One of those prohibitions — the total ban on any amendment that would deprive any state, without its consent, “of its equal Suffrage in the Senate” — reveals that the framers viewed that body, rather than the executive or the judiciary, as the primary guardian of the sovereignty of the smaller states.

The second llimitation on the power to amend the constitution  highlights the importance of the compromise that appeased the slave states. That limitation prohibited any amendment prior to 1808 that would allow Congress to regulate the importation of slaves. Article V did not, however, mention the bonus provided to the slave states in Article I’s formula for granting them representation in Congress. Even though slaves were not allowed to vote in any state in the South, three-fifths of them were counted for the purpose of determining the size of a state’s congressional delegation and the number of its votes in the Electoral College. In 1800 that slave bonus gave Thomas Jefferson more than the eight votes that provided his margin of victory over John Adams in the Electoral College. Not only did that bonus determine the outcome of that presidential election, but it also affected the work of Congress in the ensuing years when the interests of slave states and free states differed.

The procedures for amending the Constitution set forth in Article V have been successfully employed only eighteen times during the nation’s history. On the first occasion, the ten amendments, often described as the Bill of Rights, were all adopted at once; they placed specific limits on the powers of the new central government. Thus, the First Amendment begins with the command that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” the preamble to the Second Amendment states that a “well regulated Militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State,” and the Third Amendment protects homeowners from the quartering of soldiers in time of peace. The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fifth Amendment, appropriately, includes five separate guarantees: (1) the right to indictment by a grand jury in felony or capital cases; (2) protection against self-incrimination or (3) double jeopardy; (4) the right not to be deprived of  life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and (5) the right to just compensation when property is taken for public use. The six amendment protects the right to a prompt and public trial, the right to confront hostile witnesses, and the right to a lawyer. The seventh Amendment protects the right to a jury trial in civil cases, and the Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments. The Ninth Amendment provides that the enumeration of specific rights in the Constitution “shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” And the Tenth Amendment provides that the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It is undisputed that when they were adopted, the first ten amendments applied only to the federal government and placed no limits on the powers of the states.

Only two additional amendments were adopted prior to the Civil War. The Eleventh Amendment was a response to the Court’s decision in February of 1793 to accept jurisdiction of an action against the state of Georgia brought by a citizen of South Carolina named Chisholm to recover the price of military supplies sold to the state during the Revolutionary War. The amendment precludes federal jurisdiction over cases against a state brought by citizens of another state. Some critics of the Chisholm decision who believed that the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity should have foreclosed the suit have argued that the fact that the amendment was adopted so promptly proves that the Court’s decision came as a “shock” to the nation, which believed that the framers had left intact the sovereign immunity of the states for these types of suits. In fact, however, the amendment that was ultimately adopted was not proposed until March 4, 1794, more than a year after the Chisholm case was decided and more than eleven additional months elapsed before it was ratified. In contrast to that two year deliberative process the interval between the proposal on December 9th 1803 of the Twelfth Amendment which significantly revised the Electoral College procedures used to elect the president — and its ratification on June 15, 1804, was just a few days more than six months. President Abraham Lincoln played a major role in persuading Congress to propose the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865. That amendment, which abolished slavery, was not ratified by the states until December 6, well after his assassination on Good Friday in 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment, which awarded citizenship to the former slaves, was opposed by President Andrew Johnson and not ratified until July 9, 1868. That amendment was immensely important, not only because it granted African Americans citizenship, but also because it imposed on the states a federal duty to govern impartially. It provided that no state may “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Ulysses S.Grant was president on February 3 1870 when the Fifteenth Amendment which granted the former slaves the right to vote, was ratified. By maintaining federal troops in the Southern states, Grant made it possible for the new class of voters to affect the results of a number of state elections. At the end of his second term, in 1877, however, presumably as a result of the compromise that settled the dispute over the outcome of the presidential election of 1876 by awarding the victory to Rutherford B. Hayes, the federal troops were withdrawn and white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan effectively put an end to African American voting in the South for the next eighty years. During that period, while the three-fifths slave bonus had been eliminated by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Southern states’ congressional delegations were enlarged by counting 100 percent of their African American populations, even though the discriminatory administration of local election laws combined with the terrorist tactics of the Klan prevented all but a few of them from actually voting. Thus, one could argue, the Southern states went from having a three-fifths bonus before the Civil War to having a five-fifths bonus during this period.

In 1913 two amendments to the Constitution were adopted. The sixteenth Amendment overruled the five-to-four decision of the Supreme Court in Pollock v Farmers Loan and Trust Co which held that a federal statute imposing a tax on income violated the constitutional prohibition against unapportioned “direct taxes”; that amendment is the source of the federal power to impose an income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment replaced the practice of having United States senators chosen by state legislatures with direct elections by the people.

The Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, became effective in 1919; it was repealed by Section 1 of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. Section 2 of that amendment prohibited the transportation of intoxicating liquors into any state that prohibited their use. While nationwide prohibition, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, and the Twentieth Amendment advanced the commencement of the president’s term in office from March 4 to January 20.

The Twenty-second Amendment adopted in 1951, when Harry Truman was president, formally endorsed George Washington’s decision that two terms as president were sufficient and rejected the possibility that a candidate as popular as Truman’s predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who had been elected four times), might be elected more than twice. The Twenty-third Amendment gave the District of Columbia representation in the Congress and in the Electoral College. The ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment in 1964 finally abolished the poll tax in federal elections. The Twenty-fifth Amendment, which became effective in 1967, specified for the first time the procedures to be followed to fill a vacancy in the office of vice president and to respond to the temporary or permanent incapacity of the president. Those procedures were followed by Richard Nixon when he nominated Gerald Ford to become vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned. That amendment also provided that Ford should become president when Nixon resigned. In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment gave citizens who are eighteen years or older the right to vote in both federal and state elections.

In the past forty years only one amendment has been adopted: the Twenty-seventh, prohibiting Congress from changing its salary between elections. It was first submitted to the states in 1789 but was not ratified until two centuries later, in 1992. In those forty years, however, rules crafted by a slim majority of the members of the Supreme Court have had such a profound and unfortunate impact on our basic law that resort to the process of amendment is warranted. One of those rules has changed the character and increased the cost of campaigns for public office, a second has changed the composition of the Congress as well as that of many state legislatures, and two others have unwisely curtailed the powers of Congress. Moreover, the Court’s death penalty jurisprudence, while improperly enhancing the risk of executing an innocent defendant, has simultaneously removed the principal justification for retaining that penalty. And the Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment has given federal judges, rather than the people’s elected representatives, the final authority to define the permissible scope of civilian regulation of firearms.

I propose six amendments to the Constitution; the first four would nullify judge-made rules, the fifth would expedite the demise of the death penalty, and the sixth would confine the coverage of the Second Amendment to the area intended by its authors. The importance of reexamining some of these rules is already the subject of widespread public debate, but others have not received either the attention or the criticism that is warranted. For that reason, I shall begin with a discussion of the “anti-commandeering rule,” which prevents the federal government from utilizing critical state resources, thus impairing the federal government’s ability to respond to problems with a national dimension, and explain why it would be prudent to eliminate the rule before a preventable catastrophe occurs.

Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution by Justice John Paul Stevens  Published by Hachett Books 2014

For the past  fifteen years Moves Magazine has advocated for women’s rights, social fairness and equal opportunity to its readers. The Moves Millennial Forum is our annual panel and open-floor discussion on the various ways millennials can best influence and improve the current and future roles of women, not only in the US but in societies around the globe. This goal has never been more relevant than today; the long overdue furore over gender inequality caused by the current social and political spotlight makes this the opportune time to make permanent change.

This year we  intoduce our Moves Mentor Awards Luncheon in recognition of—and to celebrate—the role individual women leaders play in shaping and forming the next generation; the energy, experience and expertise used in mentoring today’s millennials into tomorrow’s executives.

Women representing a cross section of society including politics, business, and the media, attended the lunch to listen to speakers including CNN’s Stephanie Ruhle, Mentoring Expert Lori Bachmann, and Moves publisher Moonah Ellison

“…Selfie, Selfie on the stick, who is the fairest self-centered, boring, friendless dick?…”

It’s super hard dating someone when you’re a complete narcissist. I didn’t realize I was until recently I went on a date and forget shortly thereafter what the guy looked like. Sure, I remember laughing and drinking, but mostly I remember talking about myself and being hilarious. Which is horrifying. Surely this man had something to contribute, but I was on a roll with my one woman show and wouldn’t be stopped. Can someone please find me someone as funny as I am to get me out of my own head? Or really, just tell me how to score a second date, because people seem to fucking hate me.

Amy, model, UES

True Love Ways

“Welcome to Quik’n’Easy Dates for You!” An impossibly perky woman thrust a nametag and clipboard at me.  I resisted the urge to laugh and glanced at my friend Li, who groaned, and confirmed that yes, we were here for the speed-dating event.  It was of the extra speedy sort tonight, 20 dates in one hour, three minutes each, to be exact.   “Don’t worry, this will be fun,” I assured her.  I was confident that if nothing else, it would be an utmost interesting experience and a great laugh.

You see, I work three jobs.  As a novice New Yorker, or even an experienced one, this is not uncommon. Which means that to make ends meet, I must dash from one job to the next.  It means I leave my box of an apartment at 8 am every morning with my ginormous purse—not because it’s the season for Balenciaga, (well, partly) but because I must carry an extra set of work clothes, food, shoes, and everything I need for the day—and not return until midnight.  It means that I am often sleep deprived.

However, it also means that I am finally doing what I want and love to do, that I find my life exhilarating and full, and that means, in the words of my sister, that I am some sort of Power Woman.

Power Woman and all, the fact is that the time I have to go out with friends or even, dare I say, dating, has been downright rare.  And in a city filled with TK men, there just isn’t the time to sashay bars looking for guys to date.  So there must be a way to take the reigns of dating into my own hands. Which is why, based on a friend’s suggestion, I bribed Li with the promise of free drinks to sign up with me on this nontraditional, “real quik, real easy, match guaranteed or your next event half off” speed-dating event.  I’m not sure what was causing Li’s anxiousness: the event itself, that they couldn’t properly spell “quick”, or the fact that if we didn’t match with any guy, our next event would be equivalent to bargain shopping.

But, no matter.  I was here, and a flurry of activities enveloped me, cocktails were being drunk, bells were ringing, and yes, I introduced myself, you guessed it, 20 times.  It must be admitted that some three minutes were longer than others.  No offense to the dear sweet gay man or the wild-eyed actor who referred to himself in the third person, but I digress.  There was one boy however, who I’ll call Matt, whose three minutes felt unexpectedly rushed to me.  In short, I thought it would be nice to spend an entire half hour having a drink with him.

I had a lovely time, and when I thought about it, felt giddy with having a new crush.  He called me the day after our drink (usually unheard of).  “So when are you free again?” he asked easily.  I paused, my mind racing.  When was I free again?  Genuinely baffled by the question, my worn out day planner had to be pulled out. Flipping rapidly through the pages, I found a tiny blank spot.  “Oh here we go,” I said, relieved.  “I get off work early Tuesday night at ten, not next Tuesday, but the one after that…” I trailed off when I could actually hear him frown.

“Go ahead and pencil me in,” he told me.  “But maybe before that, say, tomorrow? I can pop into your work and bring you lunch…”  I smiled at him over the phone.  I really did like this boy, who I met in a situation as funny as speed dating.  Who would’ve thought?  “You know what?  I’ll just take a long lunch tomorrow.”

Because busy as I am, I know I can do all that I need to do, and then, I’ll make time for him.  I am, after all, a Power Woman.

Julie, optician, Upstate NY

“A Royal Mess”

What the fuck is wrong with you people and the Royal Family and the Royal Wedding and the Royal Couple and the Royal In-Laws and the Royal Sex Life  – as in when is Meghan going to be pregnant, come on Harry keep the Royal End up!! As an ex-Brit I can only say you are collectively missing the discrimination gene. These people don’t deserve your attention never mind your fixation. At the very best those in the UK have no choice as they are stuck with these morons at the top of their food chain. (The Queen, poor soul, at around 90 years old, is obligated to drag herself up the steps to the throne room every day to keep the bald head of the moron-in-chief crownless). What were the sacrifices of the Continental Army all about if they weren’t supposed to free us from this outdated yoke. Enough already. We have plenty on this side of the Atlantic to be excited about without succumbing to the idolatry of the idle rich plus their hangers-on (hmm, sounds vaguely familiar). A Royal Mess was a 2013 movie FOR KIDS from DISNEY. What are you missing? What are we lacking? Where the fuck are we heading?

Dick, caretaker, Queens

“…You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time…”  Abraham Lincoln

I am sure I am not the only person finding it difficult to keep their patience until the current members of the current administration are out of office – hands no doubt forcibly prised from the levers of power, kicking and screaming and forever crying foul – and the age of personal responsibility begins; congressional hearings, court trials and countless news stories for trial in the court of public opinion. No hiding place will be available. Do they think they will just get away with it? Mention no names but there are appointed public servants – on the national payroll with our dime – who lie, blatantly lie, not obfuscate or spin or prevaricate but lie every single day, knowing that we know they are lying and just don’t care. They know for the next few months their utterly shameless behavior is without  oversight thanks to a House that chooses  to close its eyes, hold its breath …and hope. However, their denouement will come. As Theodore Parker and MLK via Obama observed. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”  So my comfort is taken from the knowledge that I have many, many nights of tv vilifying these moral perverts to enjoy, with a glass of something served with ice because as we all know, revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold.

Peter, sub-editor, Battery Park

“…Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force…” George Bernard Shaw

To encourage the sight of ten-year olds with high powered rifles in their hands is the purview of the few; loose gun nuts with limited vision and a limiting affect on American society. And only the same few would argue with this observation. When another American stalwart – corrosive, unfettered capitalism – comes to the fore, opinion is again just as one-sided; this time however in favor of the motion. So when a ten-year-old entrepreneur rises to the top of the news cycle there is nothing but praise heaped on the able young American; nothing but kudos for his exceptionalism, wonder at his energy and inventiveness; envy at the ruthless determined way he pursues his goals. Not a thought paid by the majority for the effect this adulation for capitalistic success has on a young mind, his is the American way. No wonder then that the recent chauvinism has taken such a hold. This after all is the American Way. The American spirit of independence born of the spirit of the wild frontier.

Well guys (and it’s not only guys) we live in an every shrinking world environment and Marion Mitchell Morrison is long gone. It’s time to grow up and realise those people who don’t look like you, or talk like you, or dress the way you do, are not the enemy. If the Bonobos share 98.8% of our DNA – and look at them – then every single human being on this planet is our brother and sister.

The point being that a system  –  lets call it capitalism – designed to make a profit with every single

clause of its theory that leads us to seek a profit from every single person with whom we engage

cannot teach a ten-year-old the value of every single person with whom they do business.

That the system works is indisputable, just as all guns are not evil. Both however hold the seeds to destruction.

To expose our young people to either without constant regard to the dehumanising dangers of both is to shirk our responsibilities as adults.

John, composer, UWS

“…They f*** you up your mom and dad…”

With so much information on the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, particially-hydrogenated anything and plain old sugary and fatty food, it still boggles my mind how parents will not hesitate to feed these kinds of food to their children. I understand that junk food can be less expensive and sometimes more convenient. (This however is not always the case. Sometimes poor education, catchy advertising slogans and jingles and yes, sheer criminal laziness, are the causes of what could be construed as abuse of our most precious assets, our kids.)

Doctors and dentists and healthcare in general are considerably more expensive than easy options of meal choices and there is way too much information available to not rethink the way we feed our children and ourselves.

But then I’m just an East Coast Liberal with a vision too clouded by PC who takes all the fun out of life. Yeah right. Try telling that to 15 year olds who are too fat to walk up the stairs; so obese it will take most of their young adulthood to get over their parent’s dietary choices even if they could or wanted to try.

Richard, server, Midtown

BREXIT = NEXT HIT?

A whole lot of Americans believe that the UK exit from the European Union has absolutely nothing to do with the USA. Does not, could not, will not  have any effect, influence or consequence for us. Maybe they’re right. But consider this: is the difference between say France and the UK any greater than that between say California (or New York) and say Texas (or Arizona or anywhere in the Mid West)? (Even the language barrier is similar!). If the Founding Fathers were trying to perform their magic today would they have any success? Or would they meet the same zenophobic, isolationist,, tiny-minded nationalism that is causing the problems in Europe (stirred up by hungry politicians). Of course the disparities in the various economies and the widespread differences in national character and culture of member states present huge hurdles to overcome, but without the necessary vision the alternative is a return to World Wars and The Wild Frontier. Attractive to some no doubt.

Geoff, construction, UES