The 72% Demand
What Madison Would Say to Custer County Commissioners

Madison wrote Federalist No. 51 to explain why good government requires more than good intentions. His most famous line from that paper: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." His point wasn't cynicism. It was realism. Government exists precisely because human beings in positions of authority will, without structural accountability, act in ways that serve themselves or their constituents more than the governed at large.

Madison's solution was checks, balances, transparency, and deliberation. Not because these things are efficient — they're often not — but because unilateral, unjustified authority is the seed of tyranny at every level of government, from Washington to your county commission.

I want to apply that lens to something that happened in Custer County, South Dakota.

The Setup: 49 Years, Then a 72% Demand

For nearly half a century, the City of Custer and Custer County maintained a law enforcement partnership. The city paid the county for dedicated Sheriff's Office patrol of Custer City. In 2025, that payment was $435,000 annually — covering approximately 3.5 deputy equivalents including wages, benefits, and vehicles.

In the summer of 2025, the county informed the city of its new ask: $750,000. A 72% increase over the prior contract. No public cost breakdown was provided. No independent analysis of what dedicated patrol actually costs versus what the city had been paying. No mediation. Just a number.

The city's mayor said it plainly: "That's not negotiating."

He was right. Negotiation in a constitutional republic — even at the county commissioner level — is supposed to involve justification. If the government is going to demand more from the people it serves, it owes them a documented reason.

What Actually Happened in the Negotiation

The county did eventually move off $750,000. They proposed a phased ramp: $500k in 2026, $650k in 2027, $750k by 2028. The city responded with $500,000 for 2026 and 6% annual increases thereafter — a figure that reaches roughly $561,800 by 2028.

The gap between the two positions in 2028: approximately $188,000 on a roughly $2 million sheriff's office budget. Not trivial. But also not unbridgeable for two parties that had cooperated for 49 years.

The commission chose not to bridge it. On December 18, in a special meeting, they voted unanimously to have the state's attorney send a termination letter rescinding every standing offer — including their own phased counter-proposal. The contract expired January 1, 2026.

What Madison would note here is not the dollar gap. It's the process. A unanimous vote at a special December meeting, through a state's attorney letter, to end 49 years of cooperation — without a public independent cost study, without mediation, without a documented public record of why the gap couldn't be closed. That's not republican governance. That's administrative fiat dressed up as fiscal responsibility.

The "Fair Share" Defense — and Why It Doesn't Hold

The commission's defenders have argued that city residents were getting a subsidy — that county taxpayers were essentially paying for city-specific services. Commissioner Hartman put it bluntly: "I get a little bit cross when I hear the double taxation argument."

It's a reasonable argument on its face. County residents who live outside the city limits do pay the same property tax levy. And for years, the coverage arrangement prioritized the city.

But here's what the constitutional framework requires: if you're going to restructure who gets what public service from whom, you do it through transparent public deliberation with documented justification. Not a special December meeting. Not a state's attorney termination letter sent after rescinding your own offers.

The Founders were very specific about this. Jefferson wrote that "the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest." Hartman's frustration may be genuine. But frustration is not a line-item cost breakdown. And a 72% demand is not a negotiating position — it's an ultimatum backed by the assumption that the other party has no alternative.

SDCL 7-12-1: The Statute That Makes This Worse

Here's the part that doesn't make the Facebook threads. South Dakota Codified Law 7-12-1 limits what a county sheriff can legally guarantee for non-statutory services — things like noise complaints, animal control, fireworks, neighborhood disputes, event coverage, and parade support. These are exactly the services the city was paying for under the contract.

In other words: the sheriff's office, as a matter of South Dakota law, cannot guarantee the city those services on an ongoing basis without a formal contract. The commission just eliminated the formal contract. And they did so while keeping straight faces and talking about fair allocation of resources.

The result for Custer City residents: they pay county property taxes for baseline statutory sheriff response. They no longer have the contract that covered the extras. And the sheriff's office is now legally constrained from prioritizing the city for precisely the calls that affect day-to-day quality of life.

This isn't abstract. City generates 37% of total county calls — 4,801 of 13,072 as of December 2025. Those calls still happen. They now compete with the entire county for response rather than going to dedicated city-assigned deputies.

What Madison Demands of Any Government That Takes More and Delivers Less

Madison's framework for republican governance has a simple test: can the governed hold the governing accountable? In federal government, that means elections, separation of powers, judicial review. At the county level — where commissioners serve long terms, can't be fired, and face minimal oversight between elections — accountability depends almost entirely on transparency and a voting public that knows what's happening.

When the commission walks away from a $500,000 offer with no public cost justification, holds a special meeting in December to terminate a 49-year partnership, and sends the termination through the state's attorney — they are betting that you won't notice. That you'll accept whatever explanation circulates on social media. That the next election is far enough away for the dust to settle.

Madison called this exactly what it is: the failure of government to "oblige itself to control itself."

What Accountability Would Have Looked Like

This situation was not inevitable. A government operating under the principles the Founders established would have done at least three things before walking away from 49 years of partnership:

• Published a public line-item cost analysis demonstrating that $561,800 by 2028 was genuinely insufficient to cover the cost of dedicated city patrol. Let the citizens and the city council verify the numbers. If the $750,000 demand was justified, prove it in public.
• Pursued mediation. When two governments that have cooperated for half a century cannot close an $188,000 gap, the answer is not a termination letter through the state's attorney. It's a third-party mediator, a public hearing, or at minimum a documented record of why mediation was refused.
• Held a regular public commission meeting before rescinding. Not a December special meeting. A regular meeting where citizens could show up, speak, and have their testimony on record before a 49-year contract died.

None of that happened. The commission chose the path of least accountability and maximum administrative authority. Madison would have predicted it. The Founders built the republic to survive exactly this kind of local governance failure — but only if citizens show up.

Custer County has a June 2 election. Three seats. That's the mechanism. Use it with full information, not with whatever the commission's allies post on Facebook.

Jerry Odom is the founder of SEAL SD. Primary sources: Custer County Chronicle — "Law enforcement contract will expire"; Federalist No. 51 (Madison, 1788); Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774). Commission minutes December 18, 2025.