IT HAS BECOME an article of faith that Gov. Mark Sanford is trying to take power away from the General Assembly and give it to the governor. But it's at best a stretch, at worst a mischaracterization.

Would government restructuring give more power to the governor? Certainly. Would it make the governor more powerful than the Legislature? In a state where the Legislature writes the budget and appoints the judiciary? Not on your life. In fact, it's quite possible that it would actually give more power to the Legislature.

The governor would primarily gain power now held by constitutional officers and by, essentially, nobody. In return, the Legislature would get a say in some areas where it now has no say at all.

Letting the governor appoint the superintendent of education, agriculture commissioner, adjutant general and treasurer would certainly diminish the power of those officials, who now are separately elected. And a change that should accompany those -- eliminating the State Board of Education and the Agriculture Commission -- would take power from the Legislature, which appoints the board members. But those boards aren't very powerful, and any loss of legislative authority in this area would be more than offset by the fact that the Senate would have to confirm the governor's appointments of the former constitutional officers.

It's nearly as much of a stretch to say giving the governor control of other state agencies disempowers the Legislature. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of state agencies are controlled by boards whose members are appointed by .‘.‘. the governor.

Combining those agencies, and even eliminating the boards that oversee them, would in no way diminish the Legislature's power. It would, however, increase the governor's power, because he would not have to jump through hoops to make management changes or in other ways see to it that the agencies are carrying out his vision of government. That means when things go wrong at the Department of Mental Health or the Commission for the Blind or ETV, the governor could make immediate changes to right the situation. No organization can operate smoothly unless someone has that authority.

In some cases, the governor is not allowed to remove the agency directors and board members he appoints unless they break the law or refuse to do their job or commit one of a handful of other governmental sins. With a few exceptions, that needs to change; again, so that someone can set policy and fix problems.

The Legislature does appoint most board members for a few agencies, most significantly the Transportation Department, the lottery commission and the colleges and universities.

But Mr. Sanford hasn't proposed to change the makeup of college boards. Rather, he wants to strengthen the coordinating Commission on Higher Education (whose members he already appoints), turning it into a governing Board of Regents to oversee the college boards.

Beyond that (and more importantly), legislators' control over any board they appoint is really only on paper, for two reasons: First, legislators appoint members for fixed terms and can't fire them. Second, even when board members' terms expire, the only way legislators can actually exercise control is if a majority of them agree to replace a majority of board members with new board members who will do their bidding. That simply does not happen. The result is that while individuals might be replaced from time to time, for all practical purposes, these boards operate autonomously.

The Budget and Control Board is a little more complicated. The board is the governor, the treasurer, the comptroller general and the chairmen of the Legislature's budget-writing committees. It's also an 1,100-employee state agency that oversees everything from human resources and information resources to procurement and budget estimates. Gov. Sanford wants to turn the administrative functions of the agency into a Cabinet department, thus diminishing the Legislature's authority. But he would greatly expand the Legislature's authority by taking the treasurer and comptroller off the board and retaining the new three-member board's role in overseeing the budget office and the BEA and handling mid-year budget cuts.

The problem with having all these autonomous agencies -- whether they're headed by statewide elected officials or by boards appointed by the governor or by the Legislature -- is that they have no incentive to put the best interests of the entire state ahead of their own interests. That's an especially noticeable problem now, when every agency is lobbying to save itself from budget cuts, rather than acknowledging that some agencies are more important than others.

Putting the governor in charge of these agencies means someone responsible for the entire state will be making policy decisions. But most of those decisions won't be carried out unless and until they are approved by the Legislature, whose budgetary power alone is enough to ensure that it never has to worry about a governor being too powerful.