Promises, Promises!

Voters in Nebraska and Arizona will see competing measures on their November ballots — in one case about abortion, in the other about primary elections. If voters approve them all, what happens next could be up to the courts to decide.

Like more than a dozen other states, Arizona and Nebraska have constitutions stating that if two or more conflicting ballot measures are approved at the same election, the measure receiving the most affirmative votes prevails.

That sounds simple. But it’s actually a bit more complicated.

That’s because the Arizona and Nebraska constitutions apply the most-votes rule to the specifically conflicting provisions within each measure — opening the door to legal challenges in which a court must decide which provisions conflict and whether some parts of each measure can take effect.

The scenario may may sound odd. But it’s not unheard of.

Conflicting ballot measures “arise frequently enough, and the highest-vote rule is applied frequently enough that it merits some consideration,” said Michael Gilbert, vice dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, who analyzed conflicting ballot measures as a graduate student two decades ago when his curiosity was peaked by competing measures in California.

What’s going on in Nebraska?

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a nationwide right to abortion, Nebraska enacted a law last year prohibiting abortion starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy except in medical emergencies or when pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.

Abortion-rights supporters gathered initiative signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would create “a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health” of a pregnant woman, without interference from the state. Fetal viability generally is considered to be some time after 20 weeks. The amendment is similar to abortion-rights measures going before voters in eight other states.

Abortion opponents, meanwhile, pursued their own initiative to essentially enshrine the current law into the constitution. That measure would prohibit abortion in the second and third trimesters, except in medical emergencies or pregnancies resulting from sexual assault or incent.

The Nebraska Constitution says the winning measure with the most votes shall become law “as to all conflicting provisions.” State law says the governor shall proclaim which provision is paramount. Lawsuits could follow.

If the measure creating a right to abortion until fetal viability gets the most votes, it could be construed as fully conflicting with the restrictive measure and thus prevail in its entirety, said Brandon Johnson, an assistant law professor at the University of Nebraska.

But if the restrictive measure gets the most votes, a court could determine it conflicts with the abortion-rights measure only in the second and third trimesters, Johnson said. That could create a scenario where abortion is elevated as a fundamental right during the first trimester but restricted in the second and third.

“There’s a decent legal argument, based on the language that talks about conflicting provisions of the measures, that you can synchronize the two,” Johnson said.

What’s going on in Arizona?

Arizona, like most states, currently uses partisan primaries to choose candidates for the general election.

The Republican-led Legislature, on a party-line vote, placed an amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine partisan primaries in the state constitution, reaffirming that each party can advance a candidate for each office to the general election.

A citizens initiative seeks to change the current election method. It would create open primaries in which candidates of all parties appear on the same ballot, with multiple candidates advancing to the general election. It would be up to lawmakers or the secretary of state to enact requirements for exactly how many should advance. If at least three make it to a general election, then ranked choice voting would be used to determine the winner of the general election.

The Arizona Constitution says the winning ballot measure with the most votes shall prevail “in all particulars as to which there is conflict.”

In the past, the Arizona Supreme Court has cited that provision to merge parts of competing measures. For example, in 1992, voters approved two amendments dealing with the state mine inspector. One measure extended the term of office from two to four years. The other measure, which got more votes, limited the mine inspector to serving four, two-year terms.

In a case decided 10 years later, the Supreme Court said parts of both measures should take effect, ruling the mine inspector could serve four, four-year terms. That could have implications for Arizona’s future elections if voters approve both competing measures on this year’s ballot.

“The court really goes out of its way to harmonize the two,” said Joseph Kanefield, an attorney and former state election director who teaches election law at the University of Arizona. Striking one measure entirely “is something that the court will try to avoid unless they absolutely determine the two cannot exist together.”

What’s happened in other states?

When Gilbert’s curiosity was peaked about conflicting ballot proposals, he teamed up with a fellow graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, to examine 56 instances of competing ballot measures in eight states between 1980 and 2006. In some cases, the measures appeared to directly conflict. In others, the measures merely addressed similar topics.

Their research found that the measure getting the most affirmative votes often was the one that made the least change from the status quo.

But sometimes, the highest-vote rule never comes into play, because voters approve one measure while rejecting the other. Or voters defeat both measures.

In 2022, California voters were presented with two rival proposals to legalize sports betting. Interest groups spent roughly $450 million promoting or bashing the proposals, a national record for ballot measures. But both were overwhelmingly defeated.

In 2018, Missouri voters faced three different citizen-initiated proposals to legalize medical marijuana. Voters approved one and rejected two others.

“It is not unusual to have conflicting measures,” said John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. “But my observation is that voters usually understand the game and approve one and turn down the other.”

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Crystal chandeliers that once glimmered above a swanky lounge, bright blue costume feathers that cloaked shimmying showgirls, and fake palm trees that evoked a desert oasis are just some the artifacts making their way from the latest latest casino graveyards of Las Vegas into Sin City history.

The kitsch comes from the Tropicana, which was demolished in a spectacular implosion Oct. 9 to make room for a new baseball stadium; and from The Mirage, the Strip’s first megaresort, which dealt its last cards in July and is set to reopen as a new casino nearly 40 years after it originally debuted.

As the neon lights dimmed and the final chips were cashed in, a different kind of spectacle unfolded behind the casino doors. Millions of items big and small were meticulously sorted and sold, donated and discarded.

“You take this hotel-casino and you turn it upside down, shake everything out of it until it’s empty,” said Frank Long, whose family business, International Content Liquidations, led the effort to unload the Tropicana’s merchandise before its implosion.

Long, 70, a third-generation auctioneer, likes to say he’s in the business of “going, going, gone.” He jokes that his Ohio home is “decorated in early hotel,” having helped clear out dozens of them as well as casinos across the country. In Las Vegas, that includes the Dunes, Aladdin and Landmark.

“Vegas buyers are special,” Long said. “This is their community, and they want a piece of it.”

Trolling for a piece of history

On a hot day in June, two months after the Tropicana shut its doors, Long welcomed buyers onto the casino floor.

The whirring slot machines were long gone, transferred to other casinos. In their place sat an odd collection of things: desks and chairs, rattan night stands, table lamps, pillows and sofas. Piled high in what was once the high-limit gambling room were mattresses and box springs. Small crystal chandeliers going for $1,000 hung suspended from old luggage carts.

“Fill up your entire truck for 100 bucks,” Long told shoppers, grinning.

Buyers of all ages filled wagons and luggage carts with arm chairs priced at $25, mirrors at $6, floor lamps at $28. Behind red velvet ropes where guests used to check in, customers waiting to pay stood in line with 43-inch flatscreen televisions. One man hugged a mattress and box spring, trying to keep them from toppling over.

In the Tropicana’s vast conference hall, piles of large vintage spotlights labeled “FOLIES” sat in waist-high bins marked for donation. They were off-limits to buyers, destined for the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum.

The Tropicana was home to the city’s longest-running show, “Folies Bergere,” a topless revue imported from Paris. Its nearly 50-year run helped make the feathered showgirl one of the most recognizable Las Vegas icons.

Elvis’ image among the forgotten treasures

One of Long’s favorite parts about the job is sifting through forgotten corners of casinos.

Inside the Tropicana, his team rescued black-and-white photographs of stars who wined, dined and headlined there. His favorite was a candid photo of Elvis Presley found in an unused office.

In its heyday, the casino played host to A-list stars including Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

Long said his people have fun with the job, too. The tedium of collecting several thousand pillows from the Tropicana’s two hotel towers turned into “the world’s biggest pillow fight.”

When Sarah Quigley learned the Tropicana was closing, she knew she needed to act fast if she wanted some of the casino’s historical records for the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Quigley, director of the special collections, wasn’t the first to call.

But after a meeting with the Tropicana’s management team, UNLV’s special collections acquired five boxes of records from 1956 to 2024, including vintage 1970s ads for the Tropicana’s showroom, old restaurant menus, architectural blueprints and original film reels of the dancing “Folies” showgirls rehearsing in the mid-1970s.

Salvaging the neon Vegas is famed for

The Neon Museum, which rescues iconic Las Vegas signs, got the Tropicana’s red one and The Mirage’s original archway that welcomed guests for 35 years. In a herculean effort, the 30-foot sign was placed on a flatbed truck in August. A chunk of the Strip closed so the piece could be slowly driven to its new home at the museum.

The Mirage opened with a Polynesian theme in 1989, spurring a building boom on the Strip that stretched through the 1990s. Its volcano fountain was one of the first sidewalk attractions, and tourists flocked to the casino to see Cirque du Soleil set to The Beatles or Siegfried and Roy taming white tigers.

In just a few years, the Strip’s skyline will look different. The Mirage will become the Hard Rock Las Vegas in 2027, with a hotel tower shaped like a guitar. The following year, the new baseball stadium is expected to open on the former site of the Tropicana.

While the last of the Tropicana’s buildings came tumbling down in 22 seconds, pieces of the Las Vegas landmark have found a new life in nearby museums, curated collections and homes.

“There’s history here,” said Aaron Berger, executive director of the Neon Museum. “You just have to look past the glitter to find it.”

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Associated Press video journalist Ty O’Neil in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Robert Roberson’s execution was abruptly halted in Texas, it was due to a subpoena ordering him to testify over a legal backstop that both Republicans and Democrats say should had saved him long ago: Texas’ junk science law.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.

On Monday, Roberson is scheduled to testify to members of a state House committee, four days after he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.

“He’s seen how the prosecution has really stood in the way of bringing new science forward,” Democratic state Rep. John Bucy told The Associated Press. “I think his first hand account will be helpful for that.”

Roberson, 57, was convicted of murder the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in Palestine, Texas. Prosecutors alleged that he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing fatal head trauma. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, medical experts and the former lead prosecutor on the case have thrown their support behind Roberson, stating that his conviction is based on flawed science.

In his clemency petition to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, several medical professionals wrote that Roberson’s conviction is based on outdated scientific evidence and that Curtis likely died from complications with severe pneumonia.

Shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a popular misdiagnosis at the time that has largely been debunked, according to Roberson’s attorneys.

Courts have rejected numerous attempts by his attorneys to hear new evidence in the case, and Texas’ parole board voted to not recommend Roberson clemency, a necessary step for Abbott to stay the execution. The governor has not commented on Roberson’s case.

No one facing execution has had their sentence overturned since the junk science law was enacted in 2013, according to a report by civil rights group Texas Defender Service.

In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.

Of the applications that led to relief, nearly three-quarters were for convictions related to DNA evidence despite making up less than half of all applications.

Legal experts suggest the reason for this is the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals misinterpreting the law and assessing applicants based on their innocence rather than the evidence.

“In practice, the CCA is applying a much higher standard than what the legislators wrote,” said Burke Butler, executive director for Texas Defender Service. “It (proving innocence) is a virtually impossible bar for anyone to meet,” she said, adding that DNA claims are likely more successful because the court can point to another perpetrator.

A House committee is set to discuss how the junk science law has failed to work as intended. In their subpoena to block the court’s execution warrant, lawmakers argued that Roberson’s testimony is vital to understanding its ineffectiveness.

Prosecutors have stated that the evidence in Roberson’s case has not changed significantly since his conviction. The Anderson County District Attorney Office did not respond to phone calls and voice messages Friday from The Associated Press.

Texas’ junk science law was the first of its kind in 2013 and a model for other states across the country, according to legal experts. California, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming have similar “junk science” statutes, but it has not been studied how successful they are at overturning death penalty convictions.

There are many instances when prosecutors rely on inconsistent or faulty evidence during trial, and junk science laws can be a necessary tool to combat wrongful convictions, according to University of Oklahoma law professor Jim Hilbert.

“The Roberson case is a classic case that the Texas law was meant to address,” Hilbert, who has written about discredited science used in criminal trials, said.

“It has had a positive impact, but in such a limited way. There is so much more it can do.”

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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.