Sometimes a retirement is more than a retirement.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced Tuesday he would not seek a seventh term in 2014, setting off a political chain reaction that will reverberate from official Washington to Big Sky Country.

“I often rely on Scripture,” Baucus, 71, told his hometown paper the Billings Gazette. “Ecclesiastes says there is a time and place for everything.” He said that after 40 years in Washington and following the death of his mother in 2011, it was time for a new perspective.

“I just don’t want to die with my boots on,” he said. “I’m a Montanan. I’m coming home to Montana. It’s my home.”

Baucus said he plans to use his remaining time in the Senate to focus on key policy matters, including an overhaul of the tax code, which he has been working on with Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“I’m not turning out to pasture because there is important work left to do, and I intend to spend the year and a half getting it done,” Baucus said in a statement. “Our country and our state face enormous challenges – rising debt, a dysfunctional tax code, threats to our outdoor heritage, and the need for more good-paying jobs.”

The Washington Post’s Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery have more on how the move gives Baucus the freedom to pursue sweeping legislative changes, starting with the tax code:

The announcement could mark the beginning of one of the most consequential periods in Baucus’s long public career, because he pledged to devote the rest of his time in Washington to pursuing a comprehensive rewrite of the federal tax code, a long-shot effort that many see as key to breaking the fiscal gridlock that has paralyzed Washington in recent years.

That paralysis of taxes and spending has been a central feature of Obama’s presidency, and Baucus said that when the president called him Tuesday about his retirement, Baucus quickly turned the discussion to tax reform. “They’re going to get tired of me,” Baucus said in an interview, adding that White House officials are still searching for a strategy for ending the stalemate.

Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax issues, said his decision not to seek reelection frees him from the demands of a campaign and will also allow him to focus on new trade agreements and implementation of the Obama health-care initiative, which he played a major role in drafting.

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