Tasker Oddie was practicing real estate law in New York when a client sent him to Nevada to resolve legal issues. Oddie adopted the state where he spent the rest of his life engaged in mining, agriculture, and politics. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 24, 1870, he earned a law degree at New York University in 1895. He settled in Nevada three years later.

One of the most important legal contests in early Nevada history involved two pairs of corporations owning adjacent Comstock mines. The Chollar (pronounced "collar") and Potosi Mines and the Ophir and Burning Moscow had similar situations. In both cases, lawyers argued that either a single ore body was dipping from one mine to the next or there were multiple ore bodies (or ledges), which neighboring mines had a right to develop independently. Lawyers filed the first of several lawsuits in December 1861.

During America's "Progressive Era" (1890s through 1920s, ) populists in Nevada adopted several major political reforms, including initiative, referendum, and recall. The right to referendum was the first reform, enacted in 1904. Referendum is a direct vote of the people whether to approve or repeal a law enacted by the state legislature. A referendum (or public vote) occurs only after the legislature passes a law, and in Nevada, a referendum can only be amended by another vote of the people.

In 2006, the Democratic Party approved plans to hold a presidential caucus in 2008 in Nevada, just after the first caucus in Iowa and before the first primary in New Hampshire. It was the latest maneuver in a long history of presidential primaries and caucuses in Nevada.

Primary elections became widespread as a reform device during the Progressive Era. They were seen as a way to take nominating power out of caucuses and off the floors and smoke-filled rooms of political conventions, and put it in the hands of voters.