When they started talking about high-speed rail, proponents said it was a futuristic concept. And it will continue to be an idea for the future, maybe one that will never happen at all.

The train buffs were rebuffed this week by a governor who said the train won’t be leaving the station on his watch, because it will probably be a failure that will end up costing the state money.

Supporters of the idea railed that Gov. Rick Scott was being unreasonable. A bipartisan group of train backers -- from U.S. Rep. John Mica and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in Washington to mayors in Central Florida to 25 members of the state Senate -- thought this week they might be able to persuade the governor to let them work on building the train. They came up with a proposal that would have the state insulated from any future financial obligation.

It would have sent the $2.4 billion already awarded to the state by the federal government to an independent authority that would work with locals and private vendors to get the train going with only minimal state involvement and no financial obligation for state taxpayers.

But Scott wasn’t convinced, and backers by Thursday were saying they wouldn’t be able to go forward without the governor’s approval. There was some talk of a possible lawsuit against the governor, and while it appeared to be mostly just talk, Space Coast area Sen. Thad Altman called the disconnect between rail-backing lawmakers and the new state chief executive a “constitutional crisis.”

If there was a theme this week at the Capitol, beyond the immediate fight over the high-speed train, it was another chapter in a developing storyline that has pervaded Scott’s short term in office thus far.

The title of that chapter would likely be “Power Struggle,” but that sort of cheapens it by making it sound overly political. In many ways it’s a fundamental struggle between the new governor and lawmakers over the basic question of who has the authority to do what in this state government.

Scott may not have read the books that talk about Florida as a state with a “weak governor” design.

In addition to manifesting itself in the fight over the authority to spend federal money on a rail project, the theme flowed through other high-profile fights between the Capitol first floor and the fourth floor this week – one over state airplanes, and the other over a planned database meant to track prescription drug abusers.

The plane fight was also largely between the governor and the Senate, with veteran Sen. J.D. Alexander initiating a weeklong question-and-answer session with the governor’s office on whether Scott had the legal authority to sell the state airplanes. The Legislature put the costs for operating the state planes, including an air pool staff to fly and maintain them, in the budget and enacted that budget. The law, Alexander notes, doesn’t allow the governor to simply not spend money that’s appropriated by the Legislature.

The state Constitution also may be in play – because it says only the Legislature may appropriate money. But Scott essentially determined how some state money would be spent when he took the proceeds of the sale of one of the planes and earmarked it to pay off the lease of the other. That’s essentially appropriating money, Alexander said in a terse letter to Scott.

The governor dismissed Alexander’s first letter, saying basically no worries, he hadn’t broken the law. He may not have counted on Alexander coming back and asking him why not? To which Scott’s lawyer responded this week asking Alexander to remind him again what it is he thinks the governor did wrong.

Alexander has wanted the planes sold for years. But the question of who is allowed by law and the Constitution to do what is a question that appears to be taken seriously by lawmakers now facing a governor who has never been one of them, and hasn’t gone out of his way to acknowledge their role in the process.

The prescription drug database was created by legislators last year as part of an effort to fight what some have called an epidemic of easy access to pain pills that has other states complaining Florida is feeding their addicts all manner of dangerous drugs they can’t get in their own states.