Both the state Senate and Assembly will meet Tuesday as protests outside the Capitol over the budget repair bill are expected to continue and grow.
Only the Assembly will be able to take up the bill, which seeks to increase pension and health care contributions from state employees and take away most of their bargaining rights.
In the aftermath of the 14 Democratic state senators fleeing the state to prevent the bill from being passed, the Senate lacks the quorum necessary to vote on financial legislation. However, the Senate can take up non-fiscal bills, including the hotly contested voter-ID bill, which it plans bring up.
The voter-ID bill has drawn flack from Democrats and advocacy groups who say its provisions make it harder for students, minorities and the elderly to vote.
The League of Women Voters put out a statement Monday saying although the bill is not necessarily fiscal, it ""will cost millions of dollars annually and which seeks to address a problem that does not exist.""
However, the Democratic senators who would have fought the legislation remain in Illinois, and have shown no signs of returning until Gov. Scott Walker is ready to compromise on the budget repair bill.
At his press conference today, Walker showed no signs of letting up, even in the wake of union leaders conceding on his financial demands so long as they can retain collective bargaining rights.
""We really can't negotiate because we don't have money to negotiate with. For us to be involved in good faith negotiations we have to offer something, and we don't have anything to offer,"" Walker said.
Walker also presented a new deadline for the senators, saying if the bill is not passed by Friday, the state will lose $30 million because it will be unable to reconstruct the budget in time. He says will translate to 1,500 layoffs.
""I don't want to see anyone laid off, but if the senate Democrats don't come back and at least allow us to debate this bill and give us the ability to pass the bill, this bill, the alternative is just for that $30 million alone, we'd have the equivalent of 1,500 lay-offs,"" Walker said
The Assembly's discussion of the bill comes after Friday's legislative brawl when Assembly Republicans took up the bill five minutes before the floor session was scheduled to start and before the Democrats arrived.
State Reps. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha and Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, were among the Assembly Democrats who were
infuriated by the move, and Speaker of the Assembly Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, moved the proceedings back to the amendment stage.
While the legislature meets, the protests are expected to maintain the momentum they have for an entire week. Denouncers of the bill continue to camp out overnight and set up offices within the Capitol itself to keep the movement organized.
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who appeared at a rally in Madison Friday, will come back to town to speak to students at East High.
Walker will also hold a fireside chat Tuesday at 6 p.m. to address the Wisconsin public on the state's fiscal woes.
