There were theatrics and bombast to go around on Wednesday when the Washington state Senate took up and eventually suspended Initiative 960.

The voter-approved measure, which would require two-thirds approval for lawmakers to raise any taxes this session, doesn’t go away permanently – assuming the House concurs – just long enough to let the Democratic majority do what it feels it must to see the state through this recession-plagued biennium.

And what it feels it must do is raise taxes – which most Republicans emphatically oppose. Democrats have numbers, given to them by the voters, in the form of solid but not 960-proof margins in both the House and Senate. Republicans have 960, which voters put on the ballot in 2007 and then approved.

So, even though the ideological breakdown was evident, the senators orated for hours about defending fragile constituencies versus honoring the will of the people. And under Washington’s Constitution, the ultimate authority for lawmaking clearly resides with the people, whether they delegate it to their elected representatives in the Legislature or use the hands-on initiative process.

By putting I-960 on hold, by making that an urgent priority out of the gate, majority Democrats sent a discouraging message to ailing taxpayers who were hoping for a more earnest run at cost-cutting. Curiously, the majority has invoked an economic crisis as justification for tax hikes, but has adamantly refused to acknowledge the same reason for reopening contract negotiations with state labor groups.

For the record, initiatives are a clumsy way to make law, and we recommended in 2007 that voters turn down 960. The voters spurned that sound advice, however, and it’s a good bet that they will come back this year with a sharp reminder to lawmakers that they want it restored.

In seeming anticipation of that reaction, the Senate suspended not only the supermajority requirement in 960 but also a package of transparency provisions, one of which would display individual lawmakers’ tax votes in the state voter’s pamphlet.

We may not be crazy about Initiative 960, but if the Democratic majority in Olympia wants to persuade taxpayers that it’s sensitive to their circumstances, it needs to reconsider its strategy.