Supporters and opponents of California's ban on same-sex marriage were anxiously awaiting a federal appeals court decision Tuesday on whether the voter-approved measure violates the civil rights of gay men and lesbians.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that considered the question plans to issue its long-awaited opinion 18 months after a trial judge struck down the ban following the first federal trial to examine if same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married.

The 9th Circuit does not typically give notice of its forthcoming rulings, and its decision to do so Monday reflects the intense interest in the case.

Even if the panel upholds the lower court ruling, it could be a while before same-sex couples can resume marrying in the state. Proposition 8 backers plan to appeal to a larger 9th Circuit panel and then to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose in the intermediate court. Marriages would likely stay on hold while that process plays out.

The three-judge panel, consisting of judges appointed by presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, heard arguments on the ban's constitutional implications more than a year ago. But it put off a decision so it could seek guidance from the California Supreme Court on whether Proposition 8 sponsors had legal authority to challenge the trial court ruling after California's attorney general and governor decided not to appeal it.

The first was Vermont's campaign finance law setting the lowest contribution limits in the country — shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The same fate befell the state's attempt to restrict drug company efforts to collect data on doctors' prescribing habits. On a 6-3 vote, the justices said Vermont's law was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech by drug and data collecting companies.

Now, in yet another case that has garnered national attention, the office of Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell has suffered a stinging defeat, this time in a federal trial over the state's bid to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

Some observers are starting to see a pattern — one in which Sorrell and his team have gone to the legal big leagues three times and fallen flat on each attempt.

"The state now has sort of a reputation in the 2nd Circuit and the Supreme Court of not having their act together," said Patrick Parenteau, a former state commissioner of environmental conservation who is now a professor at Vermont Law School.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday appealed a federal judge's refusal to add him and three other candidates to Virginia's Republican presidential primary ballot.

In a filing with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Perry's attorneys requested that the court order his name be placed on the ballot, or order that ballots not be printed or mailed before his appeal is considered.

Perry sued last month after failing to submit enough signatures to get on the Mach 6 ballot. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman joined Perry's lawsuit after also failing to qualify.

Only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul qualified for the primary ballot.

Virginia requires candidates to obtain the signatures of 10,000 registered voters, including 400 from each of the state's 11 congressional districts, to get on the ballot. State law also allows only Virginia residents to circulate petitions.

The Obama administration defended the health care overhaul in a filing Friday with the Supreme Court that calls the law an appropriate response to a "crisis in the national health care market."

The administration filed a written submission in the high court's biggest case this term, with the potential to affect President Barack Obama's bid for re-election.

The government called on the court to uphold the core requirement that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty. One federal appeals court struck down the so-called individual mandate as exceeding Congress' power under the Constitution. But two other federal appeals courts upheld the law and agreed with the administration's argument that Congress was well within its power to adopt that requirement.

Florida and 25 other states, as well as the National Federation of Independent Business, told the court in separate briefs that if the justices strike down the individual requirement, they should invalidate the rest of the law as well. Thirty-six Republican senators echoed the states' argument in their own filing.

The law is aimed at extending health insurance coverage to more than 30 million previously uninsured people and would, by 2019, leave just 5 percent of the population uninsured, compared with about 17 percent today, according to the Congressional Budget Office. About half of the increase would come from the individual requirement; the rest would come from an expansion of Medicaid and other provisions.

Chief Justice John Roberts said Saturday that he has "complete confidence" in his colleagues' ability to step away from cases where their personal interests are at stake, and noted that judges should not be swayed by "partisan demands."

The comment, included in Roberts' year-end report, comes after lawmakers demanded that two Justices recuse themselves from the high court's review of President Barack Obama's health care law aimed at extending coverage to more than 30 million people. Republicans want Justice Elena Kagan off the case because of her work in the Obama administration as solicitor general, whereas Democrats say Justice Clarence Thomas should back away because of his wife's work with groups that opposed changes to the law.

While not mentioning the upcoming health care ruling, or any case in particular, Roberts' year-end report dismissed suggestions that Supreme Court Justices are subject to more lax ethical standards than lower federal courts and said each Justice is "deeply committed" to preserving the Court's role as "an impartial tribunal" governed by law.

"I have complete confidence in the capability of my colleagues to determine when recusal is warranted," wrote Roberts. "They are jurists of exceptional integrity and experience whose character and fitness have been examined through a rigorous appointment and confirmation process. I know that they each give careful consideration to any recusal questions that arise in the course of their judicial duties."

An annual holiday show at the federal courthouse in Manhattan drew laughs, but no one is laughing now over the possibility of unfilled jobs and draconian budget cuts that court administrators say threatens the public's safety.

"Their secret plan is to ax the federal judiciary," one character said of Washington Republicans in the fictional story line during the 2011 Courthouse Follies.

By the end of the show, Republicans promised to restore "every penny" of the funding and even increase it when they realized they needed to turn to the courts to sue President Barack Obama over his policies.

A real-life ending to the budget crisis may be far less likely to entertain at Manhattan's U.S. District Court, where 39 trial judges — the largest group of federal judges in the country — preside over some of the nation's biggest criminal cases and wade through more than 12,000 lawsuits annually.

The courthouse has hosted nearly a dozen major terrorism trials, numerous mob cases and a slew of white collar prosecutions from lifestyle maven Martha Stewart to Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.

As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.

There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.

"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.

Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.

In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.

The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.