While some lawmakers are trying to portray the General Assembly as moving too fast on important bills this legislative session, we'd say it simply is trying to catch up after years of unconscionable gridlock. The major bills that are getting quick consideration are hardly plowing new ground. As House Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell noted in our report Monday, most are holdovers from the past session. Some, such as restructuring, have been kicked around even longer. More than deliberation, we suspect that what some senators are really missing is the ability to virtually single-handedly stop legislation in its tracks.

Happily, the changes in the Senate rules during the opening days of the session have created a new sense of optimism in the Statehouse. Now -- finally -- there's more than a good chance that the majority might actually prevail. That's too rarely been the case in recent years as a handful of senators brought most meaningful action in that body to a standstill.

While the Senate has mostly been to blame, there are some House members who counted on their Senate counterparts to stop bills they couldn't defeat in their own chamber. There's still plenty of room for debate. But no longer can a single senator's objection hold up legislation indefinitely. Lawmakers no longer feel they are wasting their time studying such complex issues as tort reform, which faces both bodies this week.

The House, it should be remembered, approved tort reform legislation early last year. No surprise, it died in the Senate. At least that won't happen this year without the Senate having a chance to vote the bill up or down. That's the least the public deserves to see happen. We believe there are persuasive arguments that tort reform is an area overdue for relief.

A recent S.C. Supreme Court decision highlighted the judge and jury shopping that's been allowed for decades due to a misreading of state law. While the court decision is viewed as solving a portion of the problem by restricting where certain suits can be filed, there are good arguments for further reform, including preventing a "deep pockets" defendant who bears little blame from having to pay all of the cost.

In addition to tort reform, the governor's income tax reduction plan that passed the House was in the hopper last year as was the much-debated seat belt law that has now passed the Senate, along with charter school legislation that also has gotten House approval. Since there has been little turnover in the Legislature since last session, most members are more than familiar with the issues.

Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell rightly credits the rules change for unclogging the system. "People are reluctant to hold things up, no question about it. It's forcing them to work out their problems," the senator told reporter Brian Hicks. That's because there now is a very good chance that sooner or later a bill might actually come up for a vote in the Senate rather than being kept indefinitely under a few members' thumbs.