No wonder the author of the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn F. McConnell, decided to put the constitutional amendment package on hold by sending it back to a subcommittee.

The McConnell restructuring plan, which incorporates much of Gov. Mark Sanford's proposals, is a two-part package. One bill sets forth the needed constitutional amendments, which must get a two-thirds legislative vote before they can be placed on the November ballot. The second deals with the statutory changes that can be made by the Legislature alone.

Sen. McConnell still has hopes the statutory package can be passed. That, he points out, would result in such positive changes as centralizing the delivery of health services and putting some of the Budget and Control functions under the governor. But the senator also is the first to admit that the statutory revisions won't accomplish the restructuring job that needs to be done. "We would be giving the governor a whole bunch more responsibilities, without giving him the management team he needs," the senator says.

The needed management team to which the senator referred incorporates most of those officials the state constitution now requires to be elected rather than appointed. The fact that those officials aren't under the governor is part of the reason South Carolina has such a weak chief executive.

Reformers have been trying to dismantle the appointive board and commission system that has dominated much of state government for decades. The idea is give the chief executive the power he needs to run state government and to make him accountable for its operation. Gov. Carroll Campbell was the first to make inroads with the establishment of a Cabinet system. Sen. McConnell proposed constitutional changes to give the voters a chance to finish what the Campbell administration started. The proposed amendments could result in the secretary of state, comptroller general, commissioner of agriculture, superintendent of education and adjutant general becoming members of the governor's Cabinet and stipulate that the governor and lieutenant governor run together.

After several setbacks in the committee, Sen. McConnell tells us that he purposely decided to see how the group would vote on the least significant office -- secretary of state. Unfortunately that vote was 11-7 to keep that nonessential officer a statewide elected official. "I wanted to get them on the record and expose it for what it was -- a raw political deal that put personalities above policy that kept the public from having the opportunity to vote on the management model of government they want for the 21st century," he says.

The senator was referring to the suspicion that most of the affected officials had joined forces in a job protection alliance and their Senate allies had agreed to fight taking the issues to the voters. Sen. McConnell says the secretary of state vote "took away any cover that the issues were too complicated" for the voters to understand. Certainly there is nothing complicated about making the secretary of state appointive rather than elective, particularly not since at least one former secretary of state has said the office could actually be abolished without doing state government any damage.

Sending the bill back to subcommittee likely spells the end of serious restructuring this year, unless, of course, the public gets incensed enough to force some of the Senate hold-outs to change their minds. There's one sure way to deal with those who refuse to let the voters have their say on this issue. Remove them from office in November.

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