NASHVILLE (AP) - Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, a leading figure in the Republican takeover of all three branches of Tennessee state government, announced Wednesday that he won't run for re-election.

The Blountville auctioneer became the first Republican speaker of the Senate since Reconstruction in 2007. He said in an emotional speech from the well of the Senate chamber that he wants to spend more time with his family and young grandchildren.

"It has been the honor of my life to serve here. We have accomplished great things together. We have left Tennessee better than we found it," Ramsey said. "But lately, it seems like life is flying by."

"After a lot of prayer and many sleepless nights, I have determined that I simply cannot commit to another four years in office," he said.

Ramsey has made a career out of bouncing back from political defeats.

In 2004, soon after Republicans gained a Senate majority, Ramsey's bid to become Senate speaker was thwarted by longtime incumbent John Wilder persuading two Republicans to defect and vote to keep the enigmatic Democrat in charge of the upper chamber.

But Ramsey used that defeat to rally Republicans and raise money for another go at the top leadership post in 2007. This time, he added an insurance policy by secretly persuading then-Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Democrat, to cast her vote for him to seal the victory.

Ramsey sought to parlay his power in the hallways of the legislative office complex into a gubernatorial bid in 2010. But his tea party-styled bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination ended in a distant third-place finish to former Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, who went on to win the general election by a record margin for a non-incumbent.

But as Haslam worked his way into office, it was still Ramsey who grabbed control of the agenda from his perch in the Senate, rebuffing entreaties from the new administration to lay off of controversial legislative initiatives such as curtailing collective bargaining rights for teachers.

Ramsey in 2014 bankrolled a campaign to defeat at least one of three Democratic state Supreme Court justices in an effort to gain a GOP majority on the court, which could in turn install a Republican attorney general.

The ouster effort was solidly defeated at the polls, but the court still decided to replace incumbent Attorney General Bob Cooper, a Democrat, with Republican Herbert Slatery. And Democratic Gary Wade retired last year, giving Republican Gov. Bill Haslam the opportunity to fill the bench with a tiebreaking Republican justice.

Ramsey's ability to spin seeming defeats into victories has long drawn the admiration of political supporters and opponents alike.

"He somehow always seems to win, even when he's losing," Will Pinkston, who was a top aide to former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, said after the Supreme Court campaign of 2014.

"It 's really just a function of being willing to roll the dice and take risks. The Democrats could learn a thing or two from him."