ST. PAUL — A Minnesota Senate vote to roll back pay raises for state commissioners exposed a deep rift Thursday between Gov. Mark Dayton and Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, a fellow Democrat the governor says “connives behind my back.”

In an unusually public dress-down of a top legislator of his own party, Dayton said he felt blindsided by the vote and would no longer deal with the Senate leader one on one. Dayton said he would veto the bill rescinding the pay increases, legislation that also provides money for the state’s Ebola response and staffing at the sex offender security hospital in St Peter.

“I thought my relationship with Senator Bakk had always been positive and professional. I certainly learned a brutal lesson today that I can’t trust him in what he says to me. He connives behind my back,” Dayton said. The two spoke by phone Thursday in what Dayton described as a pointed conversation.

Bakk was not present at a meeting Dayton held with a half-dozen Democratic senators where he vented about their move.

Bakk, a 21-year lawmaker from Cook, responded in a text message to The Associated Press that he “will not comment on private conversations except to say if he feels that way he was not listening when we had a conversation about the potential options to be considered relative to floor action on the bill.”