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• Rolly: What webs these legislative lobbyists weave  

This week, I offer a suggestion on why tobacco companies seem to do so well in a Legislature that claims an 80 percent membership in the LDS Church, which lists tobacco among its taboos.

It has to do with money.

Tobacco companies contract with some of the most plugged-in lobbyists in Utah, so while the industry giants like Reynolds American and Altria don't show up in any extraordinary way in legislators' campaign-finance disclosures, the lobbyists who represent them have deep pockets through their many other clients.

Altria, which owns U.S. Tobacco Co., contracts with lobbyists Sue and Cap Ferry, Dave Stewart, former House Speaker Greg Curtis and League of Cities and Towns governmental affairs director Lincoln Shurtz. . . .

Tobacco giant Reynolds American contracts with lobbyists Nancy Sechrest, who has 13 other clients, and Travis Wood, who also represents more than a dozen corporations, including such behemoths as AT&T and Delta Airlines. . . .

IHC executives reportedly have become concerned about their lobbyists also representing tobacco companies, since their business, after all, is health care. Word on the street is that IHC soon will force its lobbyists -- such as Curtis, Stewart and the Ferrys -- to choose between IHC and Big Tobacco.

Speaking of conflicts of interest, Shurtz, the League of Cities and Towns official, was hired by tobacco interests to lobby against a cigarette tax increase, which would have benefited -- you guessed it -- Utah's cities and towns.

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