On the afternoon of June 21, 1982, the Florida Senate prepared to vote on whether to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution, which stated that "Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Supporters believed the ERA was essential to winning equal rights for women. Opponents claimed that the proposed amendment would dangerously expand federal power over the states, remove needed protections for women, and undermine the American family. When Congress had sent the ERA to the states for ratification, in March 1972, it had done so through a joint resolution stipulating that state legislatures had to ratify it within seven years. As the deadline neared, however, only 35 of the requisite 38 states had voted to ratify the amendment, four of which later voted to rescind ratification, though ERA supporters questioned the constitutionality of rescission. In October 1978, Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, a move that ERA opponents denounced as unconstitutional. Over the next several years, one more state voted to rescind, and no new states ratified. In 1982, ERA supporters made a final push for ratification. That June, the governor of Florida, an ERA supporter, called the state legislature into special session to consider, among other issues, approval of the ERA. If Florida ratified, supporters hoped that Illinois and either Oklahoma or North Carolina would quickly follow. On June 21, thousands of demonstrators, both for and against the amendment, converged on the state capitol in Tallahassee. That morning, the Florida House voted in favor of the ERA, 60 to 58. Now it was up to the Florida Senate to decide whether to ratify the amendment or to kill it.

In January 1965, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, launched a campaign of civil disobedience in Selma, Alabama, to bring national attention to disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. On Sunday, March 7, as part of this campaign, 400 mostly black protesters, not including King, tried to march across the Pettus Bridge, just outside Selma, only to be stopped by state troopers and local lawmen, who attacked them with tear gas and clubs. That night, all three national television networks broadcast film of the assault. The broadcasts sparked outrage against the attackers and sympathy protests across the country. King announced that he would lead a renewed march over the bridge on Tuesday, March 9. By early Tuesday morning, however, King had learned that President Lyndon Johnson, whose help he needed to win federal voting rights legislation, did not want him to march, and that a federal judge had issued a restraining order against the march until a hearing could be held. King thought his supporters' passions were so strong that he might not be able to cancel the march even if he wanted to, yet the modern civil rights movement had never before defied a federal court order. President Johnson's representatives told King that he might avoid violating the judge's order if he marched to the bridge and then turned around before crossing it. King did not say what he would do, however, and few of his supporters knew about the turnaround possibility. Several hours later, with television cameras recording the unfolding events, King led 2000 marchers to the bridge, where state troopers and lawmen waited. Should he try to turn the march around, which his followers might not accept, or try to cross the bridge, contrary to the president's wishes and a federal restraining order?

On Election Day in 1918, Massachusetts voters would have to decide not only on their preferred candidates for governor and U.S. Senator, but also whether or not to approve 19 proposed amendments to the state constitution. By far the most controversial of these would establish a state process of initiative and referendum. The initiative would empower private citizens to write both laws and constitutional amendments, and pass them, even over the opposition of a majority of the state legislature. The referendum would allow voters to rescind laws that the legislature had passed. Behind this proposed amendment lay nearly three decades of agitation, both in the state and nationally, for "direct democracy" in America. The initiative and referendum-or "I&R" for short-had become a key demand of progressivism, the diverse movement for economic, social, and political reform that swept the nation for nearly two decades after 1900. By 1918, 19 states, mostly in the West, and hundreds of counties and municipalities, including a number of cities in Massachusetts, had adopted some form of I&R. Opposition to a statewide I&R provision in Massachusetts, however, remained fierce. Opponents claimed it would threaten the rights of minorities, give undue influence to small but well organized interest groups, and place needless burdens on voters. Proponents urged the people to empower themselves and take back control of the state from the "invisible government" of party bosses and corporate lobbyists. Now, with the election approaching, Massachusetts voters would have to decide.

In December 1877, an all-white grand jury in Patrick County, Virginia, indicted two black teenagers, Lee and Burwell Reynolds, for killing a white man. After a series of trials, an all-white trial jury convicted Lee of second-degree murder and sentenced him to prison. A separate all-white jury could not reach a verdict on Burwell, and he was returned to jail to await another trial. During the proceedings, the defendants' attorneys had protested to the county judge that their clients could not get fair trials from all-white juries. They also complained that although black men were allowed on juries by Virginia law, no blacks were even in the jury pools. The lawyers asked that special jury pools be created for their clients, but the judge denied their request. Finally, the lawyers petitioned a federal judge in the area, Alexander Rives, to move the trials to his court. In December 1878, Judge Rives agreed to the petition and had the Reynolds brothers removed from state to federal custody. Not long afterward, he charged two federal grand juries, both interracial, to investigate whether Virginia state courts had excluded blacks from juries. This, he argued, would be a violation of both the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (1868) and the federal Civil Rights Act of 1875. In February and March 1879, the grand juries indicted 14 Virginia county judges, among them the judge in the Reynolds trials, for keeping the jury pools they supervised all white.

By the mid-1830s, the U.S. Government and the State of Georgia had for years been pushing the Cherokees to turn all of their territory over to white settlers and move west, yet it appeared that most Cherokees wanted to keep their ancestral homeland. In October 1835, the Cherokee General Council had named a committee of leaders to work out a mutually agreeable solution with the federal government in Washington. At about the same time, however, U.S. Indian Commissioner John Schermerhorn had called a meeting at New Echota, Georgia with a separate committee of Cherokees who he believed would be more willing to "remove" the entire tribe to the West. This separate committee ultimately agreed to the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835. Under the treaty, the Cherokees would cede all of their eastern territory in exchange for $4.5 million, land in the West, and other sundry benefits. U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who had battled Native American tribes during much of his former military career, was eager to oust the Cherokees from the eastern states. However, several members of the Senate criticized the Treaty of New Echota as a "phantom treaty," claiming that it was signed by an illegitimate council without the consent of the Cherokee people. Approving the treaty, they insisted, would be a grave wrong against the Cherokee Nation and its official government, which the United States had long recognized. On May 18, 1836, the U.S. Senate finally put the Treaty of New Echota to a vote. If ratified, the treaty would bind all Cherokees to the decisions of the committee at New Echota, and the Cherokee Nation would have to leave its native land.

In early 1891, California lawmakers were considering a plan to reform the state's elections through the introduction of an "Australian" ballot. Under this new system, candidates from all qualifying parties would appear on official ballots, which would be printed by county and municipal governments and which voters would ultimately fill out in secret. This would mark a substantial departure from the existing way in which votes were cast in California, or for that matter in most of the United States. Traditionally, political groups prepared and distributed party-line ballots, called "tickets," for voters to submit at the polls. Because each party ticket was visually distinctive (in most cases, distinguished by a particular color), it was easy for observers to determine how individual citizens had voted as they handed in their ballots. Closely monitoring the ballot boxes, representatives of the party "political machines" frequently paid supporters who voted for the machine ticket and sought to punish those who did not. Supporters of the Australian ballot promised it would end these abuses, bring greater secrecy and honesty to California's elections, and loosen the grip of party machines on the state and municipal governments. Despite some opposition in Republican circles, the Republican-dominated Assembly and Senate both passed the ballot bill by large margins in early March and sent it on to the Republican governor, Henry Markham, for his signature. If Markham signed the bill into law, California would join a growing roster of U.S. states using the new, secret ballot, and reformers would claim another victory in their battle against political machines.