Despite a rare personal appearance by the governor to urge its passage, the Senate Judiciary Committee dealt what might be the death blow Tuesday night to Gov. Sanford's plan to restructure state government.

A coalition of Democrats and Republicans started voting to exempt some of the constitutional officers from the bill, then started loading it down with amendments.

The restructuring bill would, among other things, make all constitutional officers, except the attorney general, appointed by the governor rather than elected by the people.

Critics say that takes power away from the people and gives too much power to the governor. But Gov. Sanford says it makes government more accountable. If there were a problem with one of the officers, the governor could fire him and hire someone else, rather than wait for the next election.

Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the committee and the main sponsor of the 1,900-page bill, said, "Real reform, for now, got defeated. I blame it to a large degree on the constitutional officers and the lieutenant governor. They and their friends have kept this from the public."

The coalition against the bill first voted to take the adjutant general  out of it, keeping that office elected by the people. Then they voted to exempt the lieutenant governor. Under the bill, the lt. governor would run on the same ticket as the governor, but would lose his duties as presiding officer of the Senate.

They voted to keep the superintendent of education in the bill, but voted to exempt the agriculture commissioner. That led Aiken Sen. Tom Moore, a Democrat, to question members' motives, since current education superintendent Inez Tenenbaum is the only Democrat among the constitutional officers.

The committee started to reconsider its vote on the education superintendent, then adjourned. Sen. McConnell says there's a remote chance the bill could survive, but it's running out of time.

The meeting started with Gov. Sanford testifying before the committee, urging senators to pass the bill. Veteran senators say they don't recall a sitting governor ever testifying before a committee and taking questions, as Gov. Sanford did for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon.

He said the bill's goal is to make government work better, ending duplication and delivering services to taxpayers more efficiently.

The governor provided an example of the duplication and waste in the current system. In April of 2002, a 16-year-old on Medicaid had to deal with five different agencies in one month, with a bill to taxpayers for $5,418.

He started with the Department of Social Services. The next day, he had to go to the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS), the Department of Health and Human Services, then back to DSS. Later in the month, he also had to visit the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Juvenile Justice, along with numerous additional visits to DSS, DAODAS and DHHS.

There was no one person, or even agency, managing his care or making sure his needs were being taken care of.

Under the restructuring plan, the state's current eight agencies that deal with health care and human services would be consolidated into three. That would cut down on duplication and reduce the number of caseworkers a person would have to deal with.

The committee never discussed the merits of the part of the bill that would restructure state agencies. The part that would make the constitutional officers appointed instead of elected "was like the iceberg that hit the Titanic," Sen. McConnell says. "Once that happened, it started sinking."

He went on to add, "People were protecting their turf." He says the people should have the final say, since changing the constitutional officers from elected to appointed would require approval by the voters. But he says it won't ever get to that point unless the public starts calling senators to make it happen.