They beat back a majority of their colleagues, many of whom were passionate about the issue, through political acumen and skillful use of senatorial rules. Filibusters went on for weeks; backroom deals faltered; tempers flared.

Across the hall in the House and downstairs in the governor's office, tempers flared as dozens of bills went unaddressed.

Fallout from that fight, along with several like it, led to a call from lawmakers to change senatorial rules -- a call that has been answered by the very man who used them to perfection.

Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, led the fight to kill the seat-belt bill. A master of Senate rules, he played every card in his deck. Now he says it's time for change.

"Everybody in the Senate used the rules to suit themselves," McConnell said. "The fact that I know the rules well, and how to use them, is just another reason to believe me when I say they need to change."

Since the session ended, McConnell has been working with several lawmakers and Gov. Mark Sanford to come up with a list of changes.

Now is the time to do it. Next session will bring a changeover in the Senate. Every four years, the body reorganizes with an election, and a simple majority is needed to pass rules changes. At any other time, a two-thirds majority is needed.

This is not a new issue. McConnell said he wanted to institute changes four years ago. However, in 2000, the Senate went through a historic shift, organizing itself along partisan lines for the first time.

With the change, Republicans took control of the body and its leadership positions. Prior to that, positions were awarded based on seniority.

"People were just too upset about partisan issues to agree to drastic rules changes," McConnell said. "This time, I think there is a groundswell of support on both sides of fence to do it."

A few of the changes McConnell plans to fight for are:

-- Tighten the germaneness rules and get the S.C. House to do the same. McConnell long has argued that this is the only way to stop bobtailing, the act of tacking on seemingly unrelated pieces of legislation to a bill.

-- Change the rules governing the "box." The Senate begins every day by addressing legislation in the box. Typically, these are bills that have made it through the Senate and House committee process and have returned with an amendment. In recent years, legislators have begun bobtailing bills onto legislation during committee in hopes of sneaking it past the committee process. That's how seat belts made it onto the Senate floor to dominate six weeks of the session.

-- Lowering the number of senators required to kill a filibuster. It now requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or 28 out of 46 senators, to stop a filibuster. Many senators, however, are philosophically opposed to "sitting" someone during a filibuster. The end result is bills opposed by a small minority often die on the vine, thwarting the overwhelming will of the body.

-- Change the rules of the contested calendar. If one senator contests a bill, it moves to the contested calendar. Once there, it's hard to get it back to the floor. McConnell said he favors increasing the number of senators required to move the bill to the calendar and place a shelf life on its stay there. One week should give those concerned with the bill enough time to draft an amendment, he said.

Another problem is as much societal as senatorial.

"The unwritten rules of courtesy have disappeared," McConnell said. "They have been replaced by the rules of opportunity. That has to change or we will continue to have this gridlock."

Few were more frustrated by the Senate's logjam this year than Sanford. The governor listed 16 legislative priorities at the beginning of the session. By the time the General Assembly went home in June, the House had passed 14 of them. The Senate passed three. A majority of those items died in the Senate without a fight, caught on a legislative conveyor belt behind seat belts and the budget.

"The governor is encouraged by Sen. McConnell's efforts to address the problems with the rules," said Sanford spokesman Will Folks. "He supports those efforts."

The seat-belt issue involved a so-called primary seat-belt law, which would allow police to pull over motorists for driving without a seat belt. Currently, the state has a secondary seat belt law, which means police can ticket motorists for not using a seat belt only if officers pull them over for another reason.

Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, has been working with McConnell. He said he, too, favors many of the changes.

"But we have to be careful to make sure the Senate remains a deliberative body," he said. "We will never move with the speed the House does. But right now we are at the other extreme. We have been facing roadblock after roadblock. We can't keep letting a small minority hold the Senate, or the state, hostage."

Not everyone is on board with changing Senate rules. Sen. Tom Moore, D-Clearwater, said he does not mind tweaking the rules, but he can't support wholesale change.

"Those rules have been in place a long time for a reason," he said. "It's funny, but when the Democrats led the Senate and everything was arranged by seniority, you didn't hear the minority party clamoring for rules changes. A minority party has to have a voice in government and I will not support attempts to do away with that."

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