Folks, if we want open, honest government in Wisconsin, we'll have to earn it. We can't take it for granted or leave the job to others, not with the relentless efforts in Madison to reduce access to information about what our elected representatives are up to.

Only one approach to date has deterred the overseers of our state from hiding evidence of how they curry favor and then dole out taxpayer dollars, advantageous legislation and public resources in return. That instrument is the most basic act of democracy: Thousands of voters taking time to tell them to stop.

It worked on the Fourth of July weekend, when the governor and legislative leaders tried to sneak a Trojan horse into the state budget bill. As our nation celebrated government of the people, by the people, for the people, our state representatives rushed to dismantle Wisconsin's public records laws. They would have made Wisconsin the most secret, least transparent state in the nation, but you stopped them. So many of you told your state senators, representatives and governor to get their sticky fingers off our open records law that they retreated.

But only, it turns out, to try again. Events of the past week revealed how determined they are.

First, the back story: As Gov. Scott Walker was ramping up his presidential quest in June, news surfaced that his top appointees at the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. had sought federal taxpayer funds for a campaign donor's failing business. They tried to funnel this donor more corporate welfare even though he already had burned through $500,000 from state taxpayers, provided false information to the state, and was planning to use the federal tax dollars to pay off debt on his two luxury cars — a Maserati and a Nissan 370Z.

Doing its job as government watchdog, the Wisconsin State Journal asked for communication, including electronic messages, from state officials regarding their efforts to funnel taxpayer money to the company. Some of the records they received made reference to text messages officials had sent one another but those were missing. So the State Journal asked where they were. It took time for the administration to respond.

They waited, in fact, until after Aug. 24 — the day an obscure board met. With no legislative authority, no public notice, no mention of any vote on the matter, this State Public Records Board determined that public officials could destroy "transitory" records such as electronic messages. At least that's what the Walker administration says.

The very next day, Aug. 25, administration officials got around to the State Journal's records request, saying "transitory messages are not required to be retained," including text communications about state efforts to throw public money at a failing business.

This is not the only move they have made to keep you in the dark since you beat them back on Independence Day. Just 19 days after you stopped Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from helping gut the state open records law, he was back at work by July 23 on an effort to seal off all records concerning lawmaker "deliberations" (i.e. cutting deals). After getting caught the second time, Vos said he had no plans to limit open records during "this session" of the Legislature. Even that turned out to be a lie.

This week, Walker plans to sign into law a bill advanced by Vos that eliminates the long-standing requirement that significant political donors — like the guy with the Maserati and 370Z — identify where they work. Vos claimed the change was needed to prevent people from maybe protesting a business where an employee supported an unpopular politician. Don't buy it. This is about addressing something that actually did happen — the 2011 conviction of William Gardner, CEO of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., who showed contempt for state campaign finance limits by laundering both company and personal funds to railroad employees so they could make donations at his direction in their names. Vos, Walker and other career politicians in Madison don't ever want a benefactor to get embarrassed like that again — it's bad for business.

Walker also still hasn't provided records revealing the history of his unpopular attempt to rewrite the 111-year-old mission of the University of Wisconsin System, which he has blamed on "a drafting error" by unnamed others.

Last January, remember, he deleted the Wisconsin Idea's promise to seek truth and improve lives to the boundaries of the state and replaced it with "meet the state's workforce needs."

Transparency, honesty and seeking truth have nothing to do with being conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. President Barack Obama has no more credibility than Robin Vos on the subject. After promising "the most transparent" presidency in history, his administration has persecuted reporters and whistle-blowers, has stymied inspectors general, and has preferred celebrity appearances on shows like "The View" to answering questions from reporters.

All parties include people who do their honest best, obey the law and have nothing to hide. All parties include people who cheat. All parties include people who do a little of both, depending on the situation.

Hillary Clinton had a secret email server as secretary of state for the same reason Scott Walker had a secret email server as Milwaukee County executive: Both would be doing things they wanted the people they served to know nothing about.

Could Clinton have succeeded as secretary of state without breaking the rules? Sure. Could Walker have achieved his goals as county executive without doing the same? Of course. Could Nixon have won the 1972 election without his "plumbers" breaking into Democratic Party Headquarters? Easily.

Each chose to be dishonest in order to get something they wanted. Then to cover up. Then to blame someone else. It is the original flaw of human nature; the oldest story in our book.

Our nation's founders, in their wisdom, assumed this would happen and set up a balance of powers and an independent press to helpprotect us from it. The rest is in our hands.

This is especially true when the balance of powers is offset by one-party rule, as in Wisconsin today, where Republicans control the administration, both houses of the Legislature and the purportedly nonpartisan Supreme Court. Public access to evidence is key to maintaining a government run by its citizens rather than the other way around. The people in power won't stop trying to take away that access unless we make them.

So let's make them. Please, contact your elected representatives — a list appears on page 2J in Crossroads today.

Let them know honest, open government is not up to them, it's up to us.

George Stanley is the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He can be reached via email at gstanley@journalsentinel.com and followed on Twitter @geostanley.