Democrats in the California state legislature have pushed through an $18 billion budget package aimed at slowing the state's growing deficit. But its not clear that the bills will become law--or that they were legally adopted.

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Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) chairs the Assembly Budget Committee, and believes the budget actions taken Thursday were at least technically legal. But because they employed a never-before-used strategem, that's open to debate. Sacramento Bee political columnist Dan Walters explains the issues here .

Democrats' budget bills