It's too early in the legislative session to get too optimistic, but we've already found more than usual to applaud. The latest good news is the overwhelming decision by the House of Representatives to give the voters of this state the right to decide on a critical aspect of the long-standing proposal to restructure state government. The Senate could make that news even better.

The session started out right earlier this month with the state Senate's decision to reform the rules that fostered the gridlock that has marked too many recent sessions. Last week, the S.C. Supreme Court struck what should be a fatal blow against legislative "bobtailing" -- that unconstitutional practice of adding unrelated amendments to popular legislation. From now on, the public should be able to expect that all bills will at least be subject to debate and pass or fail or their own. No more hiding pet projects in a massive piece of unrelated legislation.

This week, a long-toothed proposal to further strengthen the governor's hand by converting some of the constitutional officers into Cabinet positions finally got some action when the House agreed to let voters decide whether to change the method of selecting the superintendent of education and secretary of state. Last year's lack of movement prompted Gov. Mark Sanford to scale back his proposed constitutional changes from six to four of the offices -- superintendent of education, secretary of state, commissioner of agriculture and adjutant general. The least controversial has been superintendent of education, primarily because the incumbent, Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, hasn't opposed the concept of gubernatorial appointment rather than election.

The House's Republican majority recognized that it would be difficult to put the superintendent of education's position on the ballot without also including an office held by a Republican. While there was speculation that the commissioner of agriculture would be an easier sell -- since the Republican who was elected to that office will soon be serving a prison term for extortion-- that didn't prove to be the case. Despite that debacle, the farm lobby continues to oppose giving the governor the right of appointment in this specialized field. It proved stronger than those lobbying to keep the secretary of state elected. It should be noted that the previous secretary of state not only felt there was no reason for an election to that office, he argued that it should be abolished outright. It also should be emphasized that all of the incumbents still could run for another four years since the constitutional amendment -- if approved -- wouldn't take effect until the next governor took office.

But from a philosophical standpoint, House Speaker David Wilkins said in a statement that "it's important that our state's chief executive be accountable for one of the most important issues facing our state -- public education. We don't need competing budgets, philosophies and politics slowing down our progress in education." Overall, the speaker said the changes would be "an important next step in the process of making our government more accountable and efficient to the taxpayers of South Carolina."

We don't doubt that the chief executive would be in a better position to search out the most qualified person to run the agriculture department, and, indeed a gubernatorial appointee is now filling out the term. The Senate not only should agree to put the secretary of state and superintendent of education on the ballot, it also should include the commissioner of agriculture. Interestingly, according to The Associated Press, those three offices are among the five a North Carolina senator is proposing be changed from elective to appointive in that state.

While the two-thirds vote requirement makes it difficult to put any constitutional amendment on the ballot, there were votes to spare in the House this week. That's unlikely to be the case in the Senate.

But it bears repeating that the vote isn't to change the method of selecting these officials. An affirmative vote simply would let the people decide whether to change the status quo. It's a proposal that dates back for several decades, and it has been advocated by Democratic and Republican governors alike. The House has agreed to let the ballot box debate begin. The Senate should do the same.