"What's the one thing you're most ashamed of that you have done in the past five years?" he asked his fellow representatives in the chamber. "What if you woke up one morning and that one thing that you're sitting there thinking about was on the front page of every newspaper in this state?"
Hoover had promised to step down in November after Courier Journal reported that he had secretly settled a sexual harassment claim with a woman on his staff. But he said he had been reconsidering the move because others had urged him to stay on.
He said he didn't want to be a distraction for the chamber as it tries to deal with pension reform, and he vowed to continue to work for that as a state representative.
Hoover's voice cracked with emotion several times, and he said he had suffered personal turmoil for months.
"I laid on my couch day after day after day in the fetal position," he said. "I got down on the floor when no one was at home, crying uncontrollably and screaming out to almighty God to help me through this situation and to help my family. ... I went into isolation. I didn't want to talk to anyone, see anyone. ... I couldn't eat. I lost 33 pounds in four weeks."
