Utah legislators have been going to Ferry-coordinated trips to Taiwan for several years, but when a reporter pressed Ferry about exactly what they were going to see and who they were going to visit, the legislative insider said: "It's none of your business."

It is true that no Utah taxpayer money is being used to pay for the trip, which reportedly is funded by the Taiwan government. But the benefactors of the all-expense-paid vacation are visiting the island as official representatives of the state of Utah, so it might be of interest to their constituents to know why the trip is taking place, what benefit will be derived from the trip and who gets what for arranging it.

But, alas, it is none of our business. We only count during the campaign season.

Ferry and his wife Sue came to the State Capitol during the 1970s from their cozy ranch operation in the northern Utah hamlet of Corrine. While Cap used his down-home style and pleasant personality to rise to the Senate presidency in the early 1980s, Sue built a lobbying business which wasn't hurt by the lofty position her husband held in the Legislature. Success in getting lobbying contracts from businesses and interest groups has much to do with access, after all.

When Democratic Gov. Scott Matheson declined to run for a third term in 1984, a number of Republicans sought their party's nomination for governor and Ferry talked to some of them about joining their ticket as the lieutenant governor running mate.

During a lively Republican State Convention, then-House Speaker Norm Bangerter and former GOP Congressmen Dan Marriott emerged from a field of five to vie for the nomination in the Republican Primary. Ferry was not chosen as anyone's running mate, but shortly after the convention, Bangerter held a news conference where Ferry endorsed him in the primary. Several months later, after Bangerter was elected governor, Ferry was his first appointment, as commissioner of agriculture.

Ferry eventually resigned from that position to partner with his wife in the lobbying business and they now represent nearly two dozen clients, from Envirocare to optometrists, from hotel operators to the 7-Eleven Corporation, from bankers to drug makers and from Miller Brewing Co. to the Philip Morris tobacco giant.

But all that is none of our business.

When Ferry's good friend Arnold Christensen was Senate president, Ferry was a little upset over a picture that appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune that showed Ferry bending over on the president's dais and whispering into Christensen's ear on the last night of the the legislative session, when the rest of the public was not allowed on the Senate floor.

What he whispered to Christensen, of course, is none of our business.

And, speaking of access, the Ferrys' son, Ben Ferry, now sits as the House assistant majority whip and Sue's first cousin, Peter Knudsen, is the Senate majority leader.

Some interest groups, feeling left out of the process, have made an issue over the years of legislators and selected lobbyists enjoying each others' company privately at a Bear Lake cabin. The selected legislators and lobbyists also periodically went to Lake Powell together.

The Utah Parmaceutical Association buddied up to the Legislature year after year by sponsoring an elaborate barbecue for favored lawmakers. The Ferrys, as the associations lobbyists, would be the only lobbyists invited.

But that is none of our business.

Meanwhile, the cozy relationship between a few favored lobbyists and a Republican clique in the Legislature (Democrats are almost never invited to the parties, being outnumbered 56-19 in the House and 21-9 in the Senate), has had an impact on legislative decisions.

When the Legislature passed, barely, a banker-backed resolution this year asking Congress to scrutinize the tax-exempt status of their competitor credit unions, those seeking to speak in opposition to the resolution complained they were not given a hearing. The chairs of a task force looking into the bank-credit union issue sprung the language of the resolution on the rest of the committee with hardly any comment.

The supporters of that resolution were in Washington, D.C., last week to lobby the Utah delegation on their cause. Representatives of the credit unions were also in Washington last week, armed with a petition signed by 158,000 Utahns backing the credit unions' position. Those representatives felt they were not given a fair hearing at the meeting.

The Ferrys and a few other well-placed lobbyists usually invited to the parties, represent the Utah Bankers Association.

But, of course, that is none of our business.