COLUMBIA, S.C. - The center of power for South Carolina moved Thursday to its Colonial roots of Charleston as Republican Bobby Harrell was elected as speaker of the South Carolina House.

Harrell, a Charleston insurance agent and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, donned his purple speaker's robe for the first time Thursday. He will replace House Speaker David Wilkins on June 21.

Wilkins tendered his resignation and ended 11 years in the House's top leadership role as he prepares to become President George Bush's ambassador to Canada. "It's time to move on. And it's time for all of you to let me go," Wilkins said.

"From the beginning, I've wanted to reach this point," Harrell told The Associated Press. "This is about everyone in the House working together - both political parties, all races - to improve South Carolina. And I wanted the honor of being the person that got to lead that in the House."

The 118-1 vote to elect Harrell came after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison, a Columbia Republican, dropped out of the race Thursday morning.

"We owe Bobby our unified support," said Harrison, Harrell's only remaining opponent. Harrell, he said, "has all the personal traits that a speaker needs. ... The only thing he needs is for this body to be united behind him" as the House deals with inequity issues in education funding, taxes and health care, Harrison said.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith, a Spartanburg Republican, dropped out, saying "the die is cast and it is not cast in my favor." He said he was reluctant to make compromises that would be needed to win the job.

But Harrell had one detractor who put a note in the daily House journal that will forever point to how tough a speaker's race can become.

"I am taking a principled vote against an unprincipled leader - a leader who has personally threatened me with retribution in the budget on two occasions," Rep. Dan Tripp, R-Mauldin, said in a statement he asked to have put in the journal.

Tripp later said threats that he'd never get anything he wanted in a state spending bill came when he crossed Harrell on a bill aimed at helping Charleston land an aircraft manufacturing facility and during this year's budget debate.

Harrell won the speaker's race based "on fear and threats and fear of retribution," Tripp said.

Harrell denied threatening Tripp. Other members of the Ways and Means Committee that Harrell has been chairman of since 1999 said they had never seen Harrell threaten anyone during the budget-writing process.

Tripp now chairs a subcommittee of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, where business and insurance issues are handled. He says he's not worried about retribution that could cost that job. "The facts and history are much more important than a subcommittee chairmanship," Tripp said.

In a parting speech that ended with Wilkins choking back emotion, the outgoing speaker told House members to "put the race behind you. Look at where you're going - not where you've been. And rally behind Speaker Harrell."

Harrell won't take the speaker's gavel until June 21 when Wilkins' resignation takes effect. That means House Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith will preside over the House for a two-day veto session that begins June 14 while Wilkins will be training for his duties as ambassador.

Thursday's election also puts Charleston men in three of the highest positions at the Statehouse: Harrell as House speaker, Glenn McConnell as Senate President Pro Tem and Mark Sanford as governor.

Harrell, McConnell and Sanford all say that geographic power concentration won't affect how things get done. They all say they're working with a statewide perspective.

But they're known to look out for their own, too.

For instance, McConnell urged legislators recently to sock away $14 million for Charleston and Beaufort county schools to help with teacher pay problems. Harrell went along with that as other legislators objected, saying those counties are among the wealthiest in the state and could well afford to take care of pay issues on their own. Sanford, who singled out dozens of much smaller spending items in his vetoes, didn't touch what some called an easy veto target.

While Harrell and Sanford lately have been at odds over the governor's 149 vetoes in the $5.8 billion budget, both say they're going to work together.

Harrell's move means he'll resign as chairman of the House budget-writing committee.

Rep. Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont and Ways and Means subcommittee chairman, said he wants the job and that he already has enough commitments to win an election.