Gov. Scott Walker issued an executive order calling for a special legislative session to be held Thursday to pass pieces of legislation focused on jump starting the economy.
Walker said the special session bills would allow employers to create 250,000 jobs and give both employers and job-seekers ""a sense of certainty"" in a statement.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he was glad the session included legislation from both Republicans and Democrats.
""For both sides of the aisle, the issue of jobs should be a goal, not a political weapon,"" Fitzgerald said in a statement. ""We should be focused on progress, not politics.""
Even though some of the bills are authored by Democrats, Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, saw the job-focused special session as a ""cover"" to more easily pass bills supporting special interests.
""It is an abuse of power to talk about job creation and bipartisanship as a cover for advancing a partisan agenda,"" Barca said in a statement.
Barca spokesperson Melanie Conklin said while some of the legislation includes job-creation bills, 16 could be categorized as ""special interest giveaways."" Examples of ""special interest giveaways"" include those bills pertaining to wetlands, tort reform and drug manufacturer immunity.
""We do need to create jobs quickly but using that emergency as a reason to bring up bills that benefit the pharmaceutical industry is wrong,"" Conklin said.
Conklin said the bills proposed still need scrutiny because many of them have not been drafted or analyzed by the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Regular session will resume in October.
