The Deseret News offers a stomach-churning glimpse into the inner workings of an influential contract lobbyist at the Legislature. These hired guns for special interests probably have more say over your taxes and quality of life than your district's senator and house member.

Using the most recent lobbyist filings, the DNews finds that independent lobbyist (and former lawmaker) Paul Rogers dined with a legislator two out of every three days on behalf of one or more of his 33 clients.

Unfortunately, the article leaves the most important questions unanswered. Such as, exactly who is getting most of Rogers' attention? It says something about the sliminess of relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers that most gifts and lunch come in just under the state's $50 cut off for reporting a lawmaker by name. On a related subject, Rogers says:

There are some (legislators) who will go Dutch — pay their half of the lunch. They don't want me to expense anything to them."

I don't know about you, but I'd love to know the names of the lawmakers who pay their own tab, if only to submit the information to the Guinness World Record judges.

And I wonder how many of Utah's part-time lawmakers, many of whom are lawyers and accountants, have business relationships with the corporations the lobbyists represent.

Finally, in the grand journalistic tradition of Follow the Money, I'd like to know how much Rogers rakes in for ingratiating himself, lunch after lunch, golf game after golf game, with some of the most pompous, self-righteous knuckleheads on God's green earth? Whatever it is, he earns it.