JEFFERSON CITY — Senate floor business started and immediately ground to a halt on Tuesday thanks to Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove.

The reason? It depends on who you ask.

Moon offered an amendment to the Senate journal, a delaying tactic that allowed him to speak on the floor.

“The way you’re acting says to me that you don’t respect me, you don’t respect the people that I represent back in the 29th (Senate District),” Moon said. “And what other alternative do I have than to stand up and try to make a point that we’re mistreating our own members?”

Moon made the comments after a series of events unfolded on the Senate floor Monday that blocked his effort to have a bill he sponsors, SB 49, offered for amendments. The SAFE act, as SB 49 is known, would restrict the rights of transgender youth to access gender-affirming medical care.

As Moon began to speak on the bill on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, used Senate procedures to stop Moon’s effort to move the bill forward and adjourn for the day.

Outside of the Senate floor Tuesday, O’Laughlin told the Missourian that she had warned Moon ahead of time about what she planned to do. “I told him, if you bring the bill up, I’m going to adjourn, which will place it on the informal calendar. And he said, I understand that.”

O’Laughlin said she and Moon also talked Monday about the nature of her Senate leadership position.

“And I told him ... part of my responsibility is to be doing really continual negotiating with people about different bills and trying to get everyone what’s important to them, get it accomplished ... And you have to trust me to be able to do that,” she said.

O’Laughlin also told the Missourian that she understands Moon’s perspective. “I’ve always encouraged him to do whatever he feels he has to do, and I’ll do what I have to do,” she said.

Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, responded to Moon directly on the Senate Floor Tuesday.

“You disrespected the floor leader yesterday, and I’m gonna make sure the world knows about it,” Rowden said.

Rowden added, “Senator, if you have 17 other people that are behind you on any given day, I don’t have any more power than you do. The senator from Shelby doesn’t have any more power than you do.”

He later told the Missourian: “What I was trying to clarify to anybody who is paying attention was that like anybody, if you have 18 votes in the Senate, you can do a lot of stuff whether or not you have a title behind your name relative to perceived power or not. So, you know, Senator Moon’s problem is that he doesn’t have a lot of people who want to go the same direction he wants to go.”

The exchange between Moon and Rowden is reminiscent of the gridlock that stemmed from the now-disbanded conservative caucus during last year’s session.

Moon ultimately ended his comments Tuesday and left the Senate chamber allowing the day’s proceedings to move forward.

Moon later declined an opportunity to speak with reporters in his office.