Senate President Joe Negron is mulling an early exit from the Legislature.

The Stuart Republican will formally relinquish his leadership role to Sen. Bill Galvano after the November elections. But in an interview Friday with The News Service of Florida, and in comments Tuesday to his hometown news outlet TCPalm.com, Negron said he's going to spend the next few weeks deciding if he wants to stay in the Senate the next two years as a rank-and-file member.

Negron joined the Senate after a 2009 special election. But while many lawmakers are term-limited after eight years, Negron can stay in the Senate until 2020 because certain quirks, including redistricting, give him more time.

“That's an extra two years added on through the vagaries of litigation and reapportionment, so we have term limits for a reason,” Negron said Friday. “That extra two years is an option. I literally just got home. I still haven't unpacked everything.”

Negron, who joined the Senate after former President Ken Pruitt left early following the 2009 session, won a special election that year and won what ordinarily would have been a four-year term in 2010. However, with redistricting, he was up for election in 2012, 2014 and, due to a subsequent round of court-ordered redistricting, again in 2016. With the 2016 win, Negron was finally in for a four-year term.

Negron, who is of counsel with Akerman in West Palm Beach, wouldn't agree that he is ideologically bound to the spirit of the state's “eight is enough” term limit.

“I feel a sense of contentment about what I've been able to accomplish, but I enjoy serving in the Senate,” Negron, who served in the House before getting elected to the Senate, said Friday.

A policy wonk, Negron has headed the House and Senate appropriations committees, which oversee budget preparations. As Senate president, he said he's satisfied with changes he has spearheaded in the higher-education system, including expanding Bright Futures college scholarships, and with progress in advancing a reservoir to clean and redirect water away from Lake Okeechobee.

“I enjoy working on the budget. So, there are plenty of things I care about and plenty of things to do,” Negron said. “But that's not really the issue. The issue is timing. And there is a time and place for everything.”

A wise politician aware of his hometown media, Negron promised TCPalm Opinion Editor Eve Samples, in an interview streamed on Facebook, that she and the paper would be told first about his ultimate decision.

State Rep. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican whose is term-limited from the House this year, and Robert Levy, a physician from Stuart, have started seeking to replace Negron by opening campaign accounts for 2020.

Dara Kam reports for the News Service of Florida.