Republican City Councilman Dan Halloran was never a leader on the New York City Council. In fact, he was best known for making false claims about city snow plow drivers purposely slowing down their work.

Lost today amidst the news that New York State Senator Malcolm Smith, the state's first black senate leader, had been arrested on bribery charges was the fact that his Republican co-conspirator, Dan Halloran, is the first-ever open pagan to hold elected office in the United States, as Steven Thrasher entertainingly documented in a 2011 Village Voice article:

Hah, the Republican pagan won in Queens. Breaking! What does that say about the mood of the electorate, exactly? (That they dislike Asians, maybe?)