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During his first day in office, President Zepz has decided to appoint Medmouse, a long-time employee of the Department of Expansion to the now vacant position.
This appointment was not without controversy though, as significant concerns with the candidate were raised during the Senate's appointment hearingby both outgoing Secretary Muggy and departmental employee Birdish.
In particular, Muggy argued that Medmouse would be unfit for the position due to his previous demonstrations of unreliability within the department as a simple low-level employee: When he was tasked with running the “Question Of The Day” (QOTD) event, in which citizens would be asked a simple question once every day in order to spark simple and lighthearted discussion, he repeatedly failed to fulfill his duties, as in the four months the event had been running, he had only published seventeen QOTD questions.
On the other hand though, this was rebutted by Medmouse diverting the chamber’s attention to the fact that he had been on a Self-Exclusion Order (SEO) from SimDemocracy as per the Touch Grass Act for a significant portion of time during these four months, partially explaining the low amount of questions.
Secondly, she criticized him for his apparent failure of properly organizing and advertising the Department of Expansion’s second Pokémon Tournament, which saw only four entrants, of which furthermore only two actively participated.
Finally, she closes by putting weight behind her previous words via mentioning that Medmouse was almost fired by a previous Secretary of Expansion (Deus) due to his inactivity within the department.
Birdish, a low-level Department of Expansion employee who was also recognized by the Senate during the hearing, went on to criticize the President’s role in the whole debacle, who decided to replace Muggy, someone who had only been in office for a few weeks and still had many plans for events, without any prior notice or warning. He even threatened to leave the department over this if the appointment were to end up getting approved by the Senate.
In order to hear a few more competent opinions on the matter, the Senate also decided to request testimony by previous Secretaries of Expansion Quad, Deus, and Delarosa. Both Quad and Delarosa went on to say they found Medmouse to be a competent and good employee, whereas Deus refused to comment on the matter due to being busy with more important (real-life) matters.
In response to this, multiple Senators decided to criticize both Muggy and Birdish for politicizing the hearing too much, as the Secretary of Expansion is a largely apolitical position. Muggy in particular was criticized for how she allegedly attempted to get re-appointed to the position by painting Medmouse as a bad option.
In the end though, the Senate majoritarily confirmed the appointment with eight Aye votes and four abstentions. Medmouse, who will forecastedly enter office in less than a day, has already announced he is planning on hosting a “Wikipedia Speedrun” in the first few days/weeks of his tenure.