There are many things that could bring John Sweeney to mind just now. He didn’t have to go and get himself arrested to get our attention. Election Day was a week ago, but we’re still in the midst of a hotly contested congressional race—not unlike the one back in 2006, when the Democratic candidate was a political unknown, Kirsten Gillibrand, and the Republican candidate was a four-term incumbent, John Sweeney. Our current not-yet-resolved special election also involves a Democrat who is a newcomer to politics, Scott Murphy, and a Republican who is a seasoned politician, Jim Tedisco, who’s been in the New York State Assembly since 1983.

There are other similarities between the two races, if fewer among the candidates themselves. Back in 2006, the New York Times suggested the theme for congressional campaign advertising should be “Don’t Be Nice.” That could also be the theme of the campaign advertising for the special election we’ve just been through. And then there’s the common theme of Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall. In the run-up to the 2006 election, Sweeney’s allies challenged signatures on Sundwall’s petitions and succeeded in getting his name removed from the ballot. In this election, it was Tedisco’s allies who challenged Sundwall’s petitions and got him removed from the ballot.

Beyond the similarities of the campaigns, Sweeney’s latest humiliation reminds us that his long and sordid fall from grace began during the 2006 congressional race when the news surfaced that on December 2, 2005, his wife had called 911 to report that Sweeney had physically abused her. Sweeney called it a fabrication disseminated by the Gillibrand campaign; his wife denied she’d made the call but later—after the election—claimed her denial had been “coerced.” The disclosure, coming as it did just before the election, caused damage that even the combined last-ditch efforts of New York Republican heavyweights Rudy Guiliani and George Pataki couldn’t reverse. Kirsten Gillibrand won the 2006 election, taking 53 percent of the votes to Sweeney’s 47 percent.

In 2008, Gillibrand was reelected by a greater margin: 62 percent to Sandy Treadwell’s 38 percent. But soon after the election, on January 23, 2009, Governor David Paterson picked Gillibrand to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Hillary Rodham Clinton, forcing a special election to decide who would succeed Gillibrand as the congressman from New York’s 20th District and bringing us to the impasse we’re at now—a deadlocked election of potentially historic proportions. Voting machines are being recanvassed under the watchful eyes of representatives of both parties, and the agonizing tally of paper ballots is yet to begin.

There have been reports that pollsters alleged to be Tedisco allies are calling people who requested absentee ballots to ask how they voted, and it is suspected that those who say they voted for Murphy may have their ballots challenged, since the envelopes revealing the source of the votes are scrutinized and may be rejected even before they are opened.

The struggle and the angst the 20th CD will have to endure before this election is finally resolved calls to mind the hanging chad debacle in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, and the hanging chad debacle in turn calls to mind the stellar role our former congressman played in that fiasco. Who can forget how Sweeney led the charge to shut down the third recount in Miami, calling the Miami-Dade election officials “thugs” who were trying to "hijack" the election and earning the nickname “Congressman Kickass” from George W. Bush?

Indeed, the special election is giving the voters in the 20th CD plenty of reason to remember John Sweeney. He didn’t have to get himself arrested to make us think about him again.