Link to the original news post
Zepz’ time in the Presidential office is coming to a close, with the polls for the next Presidential Election already having opened. With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to reflect a bit on what he has done during his term, what he didn’t do, and everything else.
To begin this article with some statistics, the 147th President has issued a total of nine Executive Orders so far, although he has already publicly stated that he is planning on getting that number up to ten in his last few days in office. Of those, only two are joke EOs, thus leaving us with seven serious ones. Comparing these numbers to those of the 146th President Thyme (sixteen EOs, eight serious ones), Zepz has overall written less Executive Orders than her, but the count of serious ones is almost identical.
Taking a look at the changes made to the Cabinet, he has appointed one Secretary of Expansion, one Attorney General, and one Secretary of Treasury. He has also directed his newly appointed AG to replace both the SDBI Director and Office of Homeland Security Director; not all of these appointments were free of drama or public backlash though.
When looking back at Zepz’ time in office, the only serious controversy that comes to mind is the public backlash following the appointment of Medmouse to the position of Secretary of Expansion. None of his other appointees or Executive Orders were unpopular with the public or Senate (the two other Cabinet appointments were simply replacing people who were either inactive or didn’t want to do the job).
Many news outlets, including the Miasma Post, have already reported on the “aggressive controversy” (as Behind The Whip puts it in their article) regarding the outgoing Secretary of Expansion Muggy heavily criticizing nominee Medmouse’s competence. While the outgoing Secretary managed to majoritarily convince the public that he was a bad fit for the job, especially when considering that he almost got fired from the department a few weeks ago due to inactivity, the Senate still decided to approve of the appointment with zero votes in opposition, ultimately endowing trust to the new appointee. If you’re interested in further analysis of this topic, I can recommend the article by Behind The Whip on it, which is far more in depth and detailed than this little paragraph.
President Zepz’ notable Executive Orders include EO 147-01, which finally legally declared TIDE a terrorist organization after multiple amendments to SimDem’s terrorism laws following a ruling by the Supreme Court, EO 147-06, which made the Office of Homeland Security inform the Office of Integration of any new person let through the border, significantly boosting the the second’s efficiency in its work, and EO 147-09, which established means for the Department of Voter Registration and the judiciary to communicate with one another, streamlining the process of striking fraudulent voter IDs.
Summarizing, his Executive Orders were a mix of furthering intra-government efficiency, and cleaning up of the old and outdated, such as EO 147-02 “Emoji Cleanup” and EO 147-07 “Old and Stinky EO Repeals”. Unlike previous Presidents, he has put less of a focus on community engagement/activity, instead choosing to fix preexisting problems and making minor improvements to the executive’s performance. Regrettably, he did not continue last President Thyme’s habit of also posting his EOs and other major announcements to the subreddit, opting to only publish them on the discord.
Concluding this article, Zepz’ Presidency was an ordinary and peaceful one for the most part, making improvements to already existing systems, but not making any major changes himself. On the other hand though, his term was mostly devoid of drama, a truly commendable achievement in SimDemocracy politics. He is not seeking re-election.