SACRAMENTO -- The Legislature's attorneys said Thursday they doubted the Schwarzenegger administration had the authority to put out a series of videos shaped as television news stories to promote its policies on worker meal breaks, teacher pay and nurse staffing levels.

"We would be looking for specific statutory authority but we can't find it," Deputy Legislative Counsel Cecilia Moddelmog told a Senate budget subcommittee in what she called a preliminary analysis.

Administration officials said their lawyers considered the videos legal. "This is not something that the administration did knowingly against the law," added Sen. John Campbell, R-Irvine.

The administration's use of videos tailored for television news programs has come under increasingly sharp criticism in recent days from Democrats and labor leaders, who say the videos, some of which included images of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, amounted to campaign propaganda that shouldn't have been paid for by taxpayers.

Last year, the federal Government Accountability Office said the Bush administration violated a prohibition against using public money for propaganda when it created similar videos made to resemble news reports to promote changes in Medicare.

"When the governor produces official government propaganda and tries to fake it to look like news it's very, very corrosive to democratic values," said Barry Broad, a labor lobbyist who likened the videos to "news" put out by totalitarian regimes.

Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, said the videos were a "reflection of the arrogance of this administration."

But Campbell said the Legislature produces its own video releases. He called the criticism a "smoke screen" generated by opponents of the administration's policies.

"This whole thing is like a charade," he said. "Every one of us does a lot of propaganda on lots of things every day."

"We all communicate," responded Sen. Gloria Romero, the Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the subcommittee. "The question is do we advocate while concealing the source?"

The videos include suggested opening remarks for a news anchor, a narrative by a state employee and interviews with supporters of the administration policies.

There's no opposition expressed and, critics say, it's not evident that the television viewer is seeing a government-produced video.

"In essence, those are all mock news stories," said Romero. "There's a concealment of the identity of who produced it and who is speaking. ... It sounds like a news report."

But Rick Rice, undersecretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, said the videos were news releases. "It's done in a format that television news stations are familiar with," he added.

The criticism initially focused on a video that promoted regulations that opponents say would threaten workers' meal break guarantees and proponents say would give workers more flexibility in when they take those breaks.

But the administration later acknowledged doing similar videos on Schwarzenegger's efforts to reshape state government, delay tougher nurse staffing requirements at hospitals and alter teacher pay and tenure requirements, Romero's aides said.

The administration also produced a draft video on Schwarzenegger's plan to lower prescription drug prices, but it has not been released.

Romero was incredulous when Rice said the videos probably cost as much to produce -- about $1,200 each -- as a paper news release.

"Your budget is on the line big time if we find it cost you $1,262 to put out a piece of paper ... that would cost you pennies, pennies in this day of the Internet, to produce," she said.

She suggested that lawmakers needed to draft budget language that "spells out more clearly the prohibition of creating propaganda at taxpayer expense."

The subcommittee delayed acting on the agency's budget until it gets written opinions from the legislative counsel's office and the attorney general on the legality of the videos.