The legislative session is off to a rocky start for Lantana Democratic legislator Shelley Vana, who found herself under attack today for offering an amendment a Tampa-area legislator said wasn’t very well thought-out.

Vana’s amendment -- the first offered in the House this 60-day session -- would have restored about $2 million in funding for a scholarship program called the Florida Resident Access Grant Program. But the House’s education chairman, Joe Pickens, said Vana’s argument that the cuts would cost students scholarships wasn’t valid. The cuts were made because of a shortage in kids applying for the scholarships, not to deny applicants money, he explained.

“We’re not off to an auspicious start with the quality of the amendments,” admonished Rep. Trey Traviesa, R-Tampa. “The sponsor of the amendment didn’t even know it wasn’t going to affect students. Do your homework.”

Vana, who works for the county school district and has made education issues her forte, took great offense to Traviesa's comment, and asked House Speaker Marco Rubio to restore decorum to the chambers.

In legislative-speak, Traviesa’s comments amount to “very personal and I think unprofessional attacks,” Vana said. “To allow a member of the majority party to dismiss my argument as uneducated I believe demeans this entire body.”

After the dust-up, Rubio addressed the House and basically agreed with Vana that legislators shouldn’t call each other out, at least in public. “That’s not the way we’re supposed to debate,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Vana’s amendment failed on a party-line vote.

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