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.

In 1975, Nevada launched an innovation in elections when it became the first state to offer a "none of these candidates" line on the ballot, popularly known as "none of the above." Assemblyman Don Mello of Washoe County sponsored the legislation to create the ballot option. As it was approved, it was nonbinding, and it carefully excluded legislative candidates by applying only to statewide races.

Morley Griswold was born in Elko on October 10, 1890. He earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan and served in World War I. A leading attorney for corporations operating in Nevada, he formed a noted law firm that evolved into the Las Vegas firm of Jones Vargas. When Griswold entered politics, his business contacts became an issue and he faced conflict of interest allegations, particularly when he had clients tied to the collapse of George Wingfield's banks in 1934.

Harry Reid had a long, hard fight to get to the top of Nevada politics, and he's had to struggle just as hard to stay there. Born December 2, 1939, in Searchlight, Nevada, Reid attended high school in Henderson, where one of his teachers was future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan. Reid was elected student body president and graduated with a college scholarship. At Utah State University, he was active in campus politics, serving as freshman class president and organizing the campus's first Young Democrats chapter.