Gov. Jay Nixon said Wednesday that Republicans' expansion of control in both the Missouri House and Senate won't change the way he seeks to work with lawmakers.
"I want to applaud everybody who ran - stepping up to serve the public is a high calling, and I look forward to working with elected officials of both parties, not only here in Jefferson City but throughout our state," Nixon told reporters during a mid-afternoon news conference in his Capitol office.
"In my time I've been governor, I've had the great opportunity to work with folks of both parties - and the responsibility, in order to get things through the Legislature, to have folks of both parties involved in every one of those major deals."
The governor said those bipartisan deals have included funding for a new Fulton State Hospital and economic development bills that have improved automotive and aircraft manufacturing.
Even though there always have been shifts in the General Assembly's make-up, Nixon added, "It's still the same Missouri out there.
"And as I've said before, time and time again, I look at this not whether folks ride up here on a donkey or an elephant," he said, "I look at the district they represent and I try to work with them to move our state forward."
Republicans won nine more House districts in Tuesday's elections, then added a 10th on Wednesday when Linda Black of Desloge, elected Tuesday to a fourth two-year term as a Democrat, switched parties.
The GOP now controls the 163-member House by a 118-45 margin - with only 109 votes needed to override any veto the governor may make.
Republicans now have 25 Senate seats - two more than are needed to override a veto - to nine controlled by Democrats.
The GOP added the Senate seat when the Jefferson County-based 22nd District elected Rep. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, over Rep. Jeff Roorda, D-Barnhart. The district had been held by Democrats for years - including Jay Nixon in the 1980s and early '90s.
With a couple of exceptions in Columbia, all of Mid-Missouri now is served by Republicans in both the Senate and the House.
Nixon was asked Wednesday why the Democratic Party is in "tatters," especially in outstate Missouri.
"I'm not sure," the governor said. "The elections are over - and whatever I do is not going to be based on some sort of analysis of what happened yesterday, but what the opportunities are tomorrow."
Historian and former reporter Marc Powers, who now is the information officer for the House Democrats, said Wednesday that the new House numbers are the largest in history - but not the largest "majority."
The difference he said, is in the percentages.
"The 104-38 breakdown in 1921 gave Republicans 73.2 percent of all House seats," Powers explained in an email. "(Today's) 118-45 will give them 72.4 percent of the total number of seats."
The Senate's members will caucus today to decide which members will lead the chamber for the next two years.