LEGISLATION THAT is suddenly racing through the State House offers a revealing look at just how deeply ingrained in the legislative mindset is opposition to the idea that a governor — or anyone, for that matter — should be able to set state policy.

The bill strips governors of one of their hard-fought rights to decide who serves on state boards.

If it becomes law, gubernatorial appointees to the boards that run Santee Cooper and the State Ports Authority will serve for fixed terms, unless they break the law or can be proven to be incompetent or have some similar demonstrable shortcoming.

That means that if those boards take actions the governor does not feel are in the best interest of the state, he would be unable to do anything about it until board members’ terms gradually expire. Nor could the Legislature take corrective action.

This may seem like a minor change: It affects only two agencies, and they have always been allowed to operate far more independently than even the most autonomous “regular” agencies. Supporters say they need to be shielded from the vagaries of politics in order to compete successfully in the business world.

While I don’t buy that argument, it’s easy enough to see why even the strongest advocates of accountable government might. But what makes the nearly unanimous support of this legislation noteworthy is the context in which it has emerged: For the first time in a decade, a governor is campaigning to retool our 19th century government to meet the needs of the 21st century, by allowing the chief executive to run the executive branch of government, as chief executives do in other states. It is at this moment that legislators start scurrying to correct a “problem” they’ve known about for four years.

Some background is in order.

A decade ago, the Legislature consolidated several agencies and put the governor in control of 11 of them. But even critics of restructuring realized this would not do enough to address the problem of an unaccountable government composed of largely autonomous agencies working at cross-purposes. So they also said governors could fire just about any board member they appointed. A few sensitive exceptions were carved out, such as the ethics and election commissions.

This has been a largely ignored power (and, in my view, insufficiently employed, resulting, for instance, in governors pretending they have no power to force change at agencies where they are empowered to summarily replace the entire governing board). Indeed, most people never realized the power existed until then-Gov. Jim Hodges replaced John Rainey as chairman of Santee Cooper. Mr. Rainey sued, arguing that an old law giving Santee Cooper board members seven-year terms applied.

In the summer of 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the law means what it says, and the governor can fire board members for any cause or for no cause. A few people groused, and there were a few perfunctory attempts to rescind this power. But nothing was changed, and no serious damage appears to have been done to our state. Then suddenly this spring, efforts to strip governors of the power to replace Santee Cooper board members sprang to life.

No one seems to believe this is designed to signal the governor that his attempts to empower the office of chief executive will not go unpunished. The proximate cause likely is the outrage of some Lowcountry legislators to the fact that Gov. Mark Sanford persuaded the Santee Cooper board to donate $13 million to the state to help balance the budget. But that outrage seems limited, and certainly by itself can’t explain why no one in the House even questioned the change, and just two senators voiced opposition.

Rather, it seems difficult not to conclude that this acquiescence to weakening the governor reflects an instinctive belief in the Legislature that governors shouldn’t be meddling in the business of state agencies — a theory that is bolstered by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison’s suggestion that the bill passed the House primarily on inertia.

Mr. Harrison told me he “didn’t hear any outrage or praise” of the bill when it came before his panel. The governor’s office asked for time to review it, which he granted, but neither the governor nor anyone else ever raised any objection. It sailed through the House two weeks ago with no debate.

“Very few people cared about it at all,” Mr. Harrison recalled.

Things weren’t so collegial in the Senate. When a similar bill came up for debate earlier this month, Sens. Greg Ryberg and Greg. Gregory objected to its consideration. That normally kills a bill, unless it has overwhelming support and is considered a top priority among other senators.

But on Thursday, when Mr. Ryberg stepped out of the chamber for a few minutes, supporters bobtailed it onto another bill and passed it — an astonishing breech of the “senatorial courtesy” that is a hallmark of that body.

Mr. Ryberg’s opposition to the legislation was straightforward: “To me, this is contrary to where we’re trying to get South Carolina government.”

It’s certainly contrary to where Mr. Ryberg and Mr. Gregory and Mr. Sanford and countless people outside the State House are trying to get South Carolina government. But with each passing day, it is becoming more and more clear that many legislators have no intention of traveling that path.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.