The state House of Representatives gave welcome and overwhelming approval Tuesday to a provision making tens of thousands of South Carolinians eligible for federal unemployment relief. The state should expect legislators to give equally strong support for reform of the state Employment Security Commission in January.

After all, the ESC put South Carolina’s jobless in the position of losing the extended relief payments when it failed to notify the Legislature about the necessity of action back during the regular session. The Post and Courier brought the problem to light earlier this month. South Carolina stood to lose $60 million or so in federal stimulus benefits. ...

A lack of accountability is at the core of agency’s problems, and a change in governance is required. The ESC is headed by three ex-legislators appointed by their colleagues. This dangerously inept agency should be placed in the governor’s Cabinet when the Legislature returns in January.

As Mr. (Otis) Rawl wrote, the agency is “now at a crisis stage.” By its action Tuesday, the Legislature repaired one of the ESC’s most obvious errors, but there’s more to be done. For example, the state has to restore the Unemployment Trust Fund to solvency.

The ESC had a central role in digging the state into that $1 billion hole. Failing to provide for agency reform next session would be nothing short of complicity in the agency’s staggering incompetence.

The (Charleston) Post and Courier