Gov. Mark Sanford doesn't have to worry about suffering the fate of California Gov. Gray Davis. Nor does any local official.

S.C. citizens do not have the right to recall any elected officials, and they aren't likely to get it.

Every legislative session for years has seen a bill allowing for recall, citizen-sponsored initiatives for legislation or both introduced. The bills have never been considered.

State Sen. Larry Grooms, R-Bonneau, is a sponsor of bills allowing for recall and initiative. They don't get considered because there is too much opposition, he said.

Legislators in South Carolina have too much power and don't want to give any of it up, Grooms said.

But "it just makes common sense" that if an elected official isn't doing the job, voters should be able to fire him or her, Grooms said.

He's afraid the uproar in California will stiffen resistance to his proposed changes.

But Grooms said the problem in California is not with recall itself but the way it's being carried out.

His bill would have citizens vote to recall an official in a recall election first, then if the official was thrown out, a special election would be held to fill the post.

Grooms said he thinks initiative rights are more important than recall, though, because "it's too easy to kill a bill in the General Assembly."

According to the Initiative and Referendum Institute, 15 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the Virgin Islands allow for recall of state officers. Another 16 states allow for some forms of recall of local officers.

The institute says 60.9 percent of city charters allow for recall.

Initiative and referendum is allowed in some form by 17 states.

Those rights account for voter proposals such as the well-known Proposition 13 that limited taxes in California in the 1970s.

Oregon's residents are the top users of the process, with California coming in second.

Most of the states that have recall and initiative rights adopted them in the early 1900s. A few states have added some of the rights, such as Florida in 1972. The most recent was Mississippi in 1992.

In South Carolina, citizens may petition for local ordinances for limited purposes, such as changing their form of government and number of council members.

In 1982, Georgetown County voted successfully to change its form of government and enlarge the council.

But Georgetown County residents learned that state law won't allow another change.

Georgetown County passed an initiative in the early 1980s that would have turned the independent Georgetown County Water and Sewer District over to Georgetown County Council.

But the utility sued, and the state Supreme Court ruled that a state law on special-purpose districts prevented the results of the referendum from being carried out.