The Washington Post reports that Montana Sen. Max Baucus plans to retire rather than seek re-election in 2014. If true, this is big news on several fronts.

Baucus is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and has been chairman or ranking minority member since January 2001, an unusually long tenure. Finance has a tradition of bipartisanship, and Baucus played a key role in securing passage of the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and the Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003. He also played a key role in Obamacare but just last week told HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a hearing that the law was heading for a “train wreck.”