(The Center Square) – No debates on sports wagering, crime or taxes took place in the Missouri Senate on its final day.

With only two hours remaining in the session, Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, tore pages of the Missouri Constitution out of a booklet late Friday and wondered why the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had so many employees.

Sen. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, joined him in the filibuster and requested the Jeffrey Epstein “secret list” be revealed and spoke of the horrors of the sex slave trade in Africa.

“They have a different game plan over there,” Speaker Dean Plocher, R-St. Louis, said. “I’m sad some that senators use these bills as hostages, if you will. I think they’re like terrorists, if you will.”

Plocher held his end-of-session press briefing two hours before the 6 p.m. deadline to urge the Senate to action. After the clock struck 6, leaders of both parties in the Senate explained the events.

“There’s always going to be a little bit of healthy conflict between the chambers,” Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, told reporters. “And I will say this, it is impossible to understand how this place works, even for (media) as close as you guys who watch us every day. Until you’re in the middle of it, you just don’t understand it.”

There were 723 bills filed in the Senate and 1,478 filed in the House. Not including the 20 budget bills, 44 were passed and sent to Republican Gov. Mike Parson.

“The number of bills you pass is not necessarily the measure of accomplishment,” said Senate Floor Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina.

Senate Democrats applauded the leadership of Rowden and O’Laughlin and said the legislature’s best accomplishment was the state’s $50 billion budget. The session’s ending didn’t surprise Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence.

“There’s still going to be, obviously, situations where a small group – that looks like it gets bigger after every election cycle – taking the chamber hostage, taking  their party hostage,” Rizzo said. “And if they secede to them, they will take everything that they can get. You give them an inch, they'll take a mile.”

When he was a representative, Rowden said he often questioned how the Senate could perform below his expectations.

“But until you get here, you just (don’t) recognize how complex it is,” Rowden said.

When asked to explain why the Senate appeared dysfunctional to Missourians, Rowden emphasized the thousands of people who voted for their Senators.

“And all the people who held up business and stopped a lot of really good things from passing, they got elected by tens of thousands of people in their communities,” Rowden said. “Ultimately, this place … can operate in two or three different ways. We either all work really well together and respect each other. We change the rules. Or, we turn into the House.”

Rizzo praised the 10 Senate Democrats for legislative efforts and discounted the role of partisan opposition.

“Look, we want a functioning Senate like anybody else,” Rizzo said. “And that's kind of crazy for us to say as the Democrats, but the bottom line is when we have people to work with, we can do good things.”