It's not often that you hear elected officials talk about a zombie invasion, but by golly, the Monroe County Legislature managed to pull it off last night.

The topic was the Republicans' proposed Taxpayer Protection Act, which would limit annual increases in non-mandated county spending to the increase in the Consumer Price Index. Republicans insist that they have taxpayers' interests at heart. Cynics say the Republicans concocted the plan to bring out the party base in an important year: Democrats think they have a chance at taking control of the legislature.

The Democrats didn't dare oppose the act for fear that they would be painted as pro-tax legislators. But last night,they introduced a flurry of amendments - eight in total - seeking to provide spending exemptions in the case of emergencies. They wanted to exempt spending related to a terrorist attack, floods, snow or ice storms, a flu epidemic, a nuclear emergency at the Ginna power plant. One amendment would have required a detailed list of what constitutes mandated and non-mandated spending.

Ultimately, the act passed unaltered, with three Democrats opposing it, but the amendments sparked furious, sometimes uncivil debate.

Majority Leader Bill Smith, a Pittsford Republican, called the Ginna amendment incomplete because it didn't include "bubonic plague" or an "alien invasion."

City Democrat Carrie Andrews chided the Republicans for their snippy comments. The amendments, she said, were made in all seriousness, to ensure that the act doesn't put the county in a bind in an emergency.

Ultimately, the Democrats' amendments were shot down or tabled, including one by Brighton's Travis Heider, to reduce the spending cap to half of the Consumer Price Index increase.

Even Doug Dobson, a Greece Republican, failed in an attempt to change the act. He asked about expanding it to cover sales and property-tax increases, but county attorney Dan DeLaus said that, in short, it couldn't be done.