The Utah Senate majority leader says his two-week Italian trip with two longtime friends, who also happen to be lobbyists, last month was above board and "not one dime" of his trip was paid for by the lobbyists.

Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, said he and his wife have been friends for years with Micron lobbyist (and now Utah GOP chairman) Stan Lockhart and his wife, Becky, who is a GOP state House member from Provo, and with freelance lobbyist and former state Senator Paul Rogers and his wife.

About a year ago, Bramble said, Stan Lockhart, who he regularly goes boating with on Lake Powell, called him, asking if he would be interested in sharing the cost of a trip to central Italy. Utah County Commission Chairman Steve White was actually at an auction/fund-raising event for the local Boys and Girls Club and was bidding on the trip as they spoke.

"It would be our 30th wedding anniversary" in 2007, so Bramble said, yes, he would like to bid on the trip with the understanding that he, Bramble, would pay his own way. Bramble said he and his wife have known the Whites for years, and White has been a client of CPA Bramble for some time.

White ultimately paid $4,100 for a villa in a town about 80 miles north of Rome. It ended up that that cost was split four ways by the four couples, and each couple paid their own travel costs.

Lockhart is the lobbyist for Micron, a large computer-chip maker that has a plant in northern Utah County. Rogers carries a long list of clients and as a partner in the Tetris Group lobbying and government consultant firm is one of the most successful lobbyists on Utah's Capitol Hill.

Originally, Bramble said, Rogers and his wife were not scheduled to go — it was just the Brambles, the Whites and the Lockharts. Bramble said he didn't invite the Rogerses, White did. But when it became clear that the Rogerses — friends of the Brambles from 30 years ago when both the young couples lived in the same LDS Church ward — "I made it clear that I would not talk (to Rogers) about any of Paul's clients or his (legislative) issues, no political things" during the trip. Micron currently has no issues before the Legislature, Bramble said he believes.

Bramble also told Rogers that he would not accept anything of value from Rogers, "not even a soda pop." And, Bramble said, he didn't.

"We were very careful ... that this was non-legislative, just friends going on a trip" — friendships that go back decades, Bramble said.

Bramble said while the local news media would "do their damndest" trying to twist the trip into "something nefarious," it was not that at all.

"I probably actually ended up paying more than my fair share" of the trip, which lasted about 12 days, ending last week, Bramble said. But he wanted to be extra careful that "nothing was done amiss" and that there was "not a chance that one lobbyist dime" would be spent on him and his wife during the vacation.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com