State lawmakers made it clear they want Gov. Mark Sanford to resign, but wouldn't recommend ousting him over his travels and trysts with an Argentine mistress.

A House panel by a convincing 6-1 vote rejected an impeachment resolution Wednesday and instead chose to formally rebuke Sanford. The measure says he brought "ridicule, dishonor, disgrace and shame" to the state he was twice overwhelmingly elected to lead. The panel said the governor had lost credibility, but they weren't ready to fire him.

"An impeachment proceeding will only add to the harm he has already done," said state Rep. James Smith, a Democrat.

What the governor will be able to accomplish in the coming months, however, is in doubt, with his term-limited departure set for January 2011. The censure measure's 7-0 vote almost guarantees it'll reach the House floor for debate in January. If it passes, the Senate would consider the rebuke.

Even before the affair, Sanford forecast his final year would be unremarkable. Long a critic of fellow Republicans who control the Legislature, he burned tremendous political capital unsuccessfully trying to prevent them from accepting $700 million in federal stimulus money for state schools. He took the battle to court and become nationally known as an anti-stimulus voice.

He left for Argentina soon after losing that fight.

Sanford knows the damage he's brought on himself. Once thought of as a potential 2012 presidential candidate, he instead became the only South Carolina governor to face an impeachment since Reconstruction.

Sanford has said he considered resigning after he returned in June from a five-day rendezvous with Maria Belen Chapur in Buenos Aires and tearfully confessed the affair, but friends persuaded him to stay.

He hit the road a few weeks later, apologizing to audiences and telling them they should help salvage a policy agenda that includes streamlining government and bringing jobs to a state that's persistently ranked among the nation's highest for unemployment.

He promised to work with Republican legislators after years of fighting with them.

After the committee's vote Wednesday, Sanford said his constituents helped him persevere.

"There were days in the last five months when I could hardly get out of bed, I didn't know exactly how you put the next step in front of the other, but it was their respective strength, their faith in me ... that allowed me to get back up and put that next foot in front of the other. I want to thank them for that grace and that kindness," he said.