“I felt very strongly about the passage of the budget, and we put that at the higher priority than health care,” Watkins said Tuesday.

“My concern was that unless we managed to keep everybody together, (House Republicans) were going to vote against the budget, and I felt that that would be an extreme problem.”

Looking back on the issue, though, Watkins expressed second thoughts over his decision.

“I probably should not have done that,” Watkins said.

“This last session was probably one of the most difficult sessions that I’ve ever been part of, and it convinced me there was life beyond the legislature.”

In recent years Watkins has come to see himself as something of a vanishing breed, a moderate Republican in a party whose politics have been increasingly tilting to the right.

“I was very disappointed that we couldn’t get people to turn away from the politics and look at the policy,” he said. “And I think we got infected with the Washington politicization of every subject,” he said.