PHOENIX — Arizona and Colorado voters rejected growth limits for going too far. Oregon and Colorado said gun-show background checks should go further. And in Nevada, voters veered both left and right in allowing marijuana use for medicinal purposes but banning gay marriages.

Westerners approved an array of ballot propositions Tuesday that displayed both the independent and conservative qualities the region holds dear.

Voters in Arizona and Colorado soundly defeated measures to restrict development in their states, although they are among the fastest-growing in the country.

Arizona’s Proposition 202 called for cities and counties to adopt 10-year growth limits and force developers to pay for roads, schools and other services to new subdivisions. Colorado’s Amendment 24 required counties and cities to map future growth and submit development proposals to voters.

Conservationists had backed both measures, saying state leaders had done little to combat sprawl, but voters rejected the growth limits as too sweeping.

"That just takes it way too far," said Susanne Clibbon, a bus driver from Scottsdale, Ariz.

Jonathan Weiss, head of George Washington University’s Center on Sustainability and Regional Growth, said that despite their defeat, the measures spurred debate about a topic that Western communities must eventually address.

"They could provide a trigger in finally bringing the parties in those states to adopt a more broad-based, comprehensive smart growth approach," Weiss said. "It’s clear that this is still on the top of the radar screen."

In Oregon and Colorado, where citizens are still shaken following deadly school shootings, voters approved initiatives to require criminal background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows. Current law requires checks for firearms purchased from federally licensed dealers but not from private sellers.

The Oregon measure gained momentum following the 1998 shooting rampage at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., in which teen-ager Kip Kinkel killed two students and injured 25 others.

The Colorado proposal was backed by families of victims of the Columbine High School massacre. Some of the weapons used by teen killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were purchased from private gun show dealers before the 1999 shooting in which 13 people were killed and 23 were wounded.

Education and wildlife, marijuana and morality also dominated ballot propositions in the West.

California rejected school vouchers, while Montana restricted canned hunts in game farms. Colorado and Nevada approved medicinal marijuana use. Nevada banned gay marriages, while an Oregon measure to prohibit public school teaching that sanctions homosexuality was failing.