Gov. Jay Nixon has two more legislative sessions to go in his second term - and some of the Republican leaders he must work with continue to complain the Democratic governor doesn't work well with them.
Even as last week's veto session was beginning, the Missouri Senate's leadership was calling Nixon "disengaged" and "disconnected."
"The governor remained completely disengaged for five months throughout the regular legislative session, only descending from his "ivory tower' to veto the bills we have worked so hard on," Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey said in a news release. "He continues to push his agenda through speeches and fly-arounds instead of working together with legislators to craft real solutions to the complex issues facing Missouri."
Several times during the Senate's debate Wednesday over various bills and budget line-items the governor had vetoed, Nixon was accused of making sure he could pay for regular trips around the state on an expensive Highway Patrol jet, by rejecting money lawmakers had budgeted for programs benefiting children, poor people and others in need.
"We can have a debate about policy and a lot of other things," Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, said in an interview, "but, when your spending priorities are your luxury travel over rape kits for kids, that's wrong."
Sen. Maria Chappelle Nadal, D-University City - whose district includes Ferguson - complained during two different speeches Wednesday that the governor had not gotten involved soon enough in the crisis that followed the Aug. 9 killing of teenager Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer.
"Unequivocally, he did nothing," she said. "He stood by and did nothing until this was a global story."
She later urged Nixon to "man up!" - and promised to give the Highway Patrol more scrutiny for the role it played in the Ferguson situation.
The governor generally has declined to react to those verbal attacks.
In a news release following the veto session, Nixon announced the release of money budgeted for education, that he had withheld in June because of concerns that some lawmaker-approved sales tax breaks would cut too deeply into the state's revenues.
"The future of our state depends on a strong public education system that delivers the high quality education our students deserve," Nixon said in the release. "I thank members of the General Assembly for taking a closer look at these bills, listening to their constituents and standing with their schools."
But Dempsey told reporters early Thursday morning, after the Senate ended its part of the veto session: "It's time (for Nixon) to be a partner in the process."
Sen. Paul LeVota, D-Independence, seemed to agree.
"I think it's good for all of us, including the governor, to use this opportunity to work together more and more," he said shortly after the veto session ended, "to talk more to each other.
"I think this is a day to say, "I think we all need to do a better job of working together, to get things done together.'"
He said Nixon probably should make more visits with lawmakers during the five-month sessions each spring, when the budget and laws are written and passed.
But state Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton, thinks Nixon already does that more often than he's given credit for.
"He was visiting with members of the Senate about issues in veto session as recently as (Wednesday) morning," Sifton said. "I understand that folks may not have the degree of access that they might want in certain instances.
"(And) he does that during the regular session."