Morrissey said in his announcement Thursday that he has “never claimed to be a perfect individual.”

“I’m not. It’s a work in progress,” he said. “I have made a reference (that) we’re all part saints and sinners. So there are things that would have been done differently. But that is in the past. I have to look forward.”

He also said there is no precedent for stepping down as a member of the House because of a misdemeanor conviction. He said he is doing so, effective the day of the special election, because he does not want to be a distraction during the General Assembly session.

He said his actions are “consistent with what I have maintained all along, that it is the voters and not the pundits and not partisan caucuses that should decide who serves in office.”

Republicans, like Democrats, were unprepared for Morrissey’s announcement. As of Thursday, they had no plans to mount a GOP campaign in the 74th District, which includes parts of Richmond and Henrico and all of Charles City County and is considered safely Democratic.

“We don’t know yet. We just got notice this afternoon,” said J. Garren Shipley, spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia.