What's become an annual effort to shorten the time S.C. legislators spend in the Statehouse isn't a partisan fight. Jim Hodges, the former Democratic governor, championed the idea when he was in office, and the Republican-dominated House, led by Speaker David Wilkins, has agreed -- more than once -- to shave time off the opening and closing of the General Assembly. The speaker has resumed that effort in this new legislative session and this time there's actually some reason to hope the Senate may go along.

The speaker's new found optimism is based on the fact that nearly a dozen senators are co-authors of a bill that would reduce the length of the annual sessions by three weeks. The bill proposes changing the mandatory adjournment date from the first Thursday in June to the second Thursday in May. The House has agreed to that timetable in the past.

While the adjournment time can be changed by statute, the opening of the Legislature is mandated by the S.C. Constitution. The state constitution, by the way, stipulates that members will only be paid for a total of 40 days of service, which says just how part-time the framers felt the body should be.

The House proposal also includes a constitutional amendment stipulating that in odd-numbered years the Legislature would begin the first Tuesday in February rather than a month earlier, which would allow committees time to ready legislation for the start of a new, two-year session.

There is no disputing that too much time is now wasted in the legislative start-up or that an earlier adjournment deadline would force lawmakers to spend more hours of their day on the House and Senate floors. There is a natural tendency, by no means peculiar to lawmakers, to wait until deadlines approach to really get down to business.

For some of the state's very best legislators, the length of time required to be in Columbia made it prohibitive for them to continue to serve and maintain their businesses back home. Others who would serve their state well don't even consider legislative service because of the time involved.

Lawmakers in the not-so-distant past proved they could get the job done much more expediently. It wasn't that uncommon a few decades ago for lawmakers to wrap up their business by mid-spring. It shouldn't go unnoticed that the length of time spent in Columbia began to lengthen just about the time lawmakers got their own private offices and staff.

Obviously a shorter session would save taxpayers money. That ought to be incentive enough. But it also should result in a more focused legislative body with members more cognizant of the fact that their full-time jobs are supposed to be back home.