This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Charges against a South Dakota ranching family have been dropped in a land dispute. Charles and Heather Maude were indicted on federal charges for allegedly taking 50 acres of national grassland.
The Trump administration announced that they were dropping the charges late last week.
And now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will investigate charges of government overreach in this case.
Jonathan Ellis is co-founder of The Dakota Scout. He is our Dakota Political Junkie today
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The following transcript was auto-generated and edited for clarity.
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, last year, last June, they were indicted by a federal grand jury.
Lori Walsh:
Who?
Jonathan Ellis:
I'm sorry. Charles and Heather Maude. Thank you. We should get to that point, the who part.
And they have two young children. They're West River out there. They have a ranch that's kind of along the Cheyenne River, Buffalo Gap Grassland. And there was sort of a contention that the government made, the Forest Service made, that they had wrongly fenced off approximately 25 to 50 acres of land that should have been grassland and that they were using that and appropriated that, in some sense, for grazing.
And it was an interesting dispute. I mean, supporters of the Maude family, you said that that fence had been in existence since the 1950s, that fence line, that this was not new. So that led to, so originally they were agreed to do a survey. They had a meeting when the Forest Service office, they agreed to do a survey. A survey crew went out there and that was done. But even before, I guess from what my understanding, even before the complete results of that survey were in, they went ahead and moved forward with the criminal indictment.
So I think my reporting is that people in that community were surprised at how quickly that escalated into something or something that's usually just done very administratively, to my understanding. I also understand, been told that it's not unusual for these sort of survey issues to take place. I mean, a lot of this was done way back when. And one of the points that, again, going back to their supporters, the family supporters, is that along the Cheyenne River, that has shifted quite a bit. The course of the river has shifted quite a bit over the years. And so the lines have sort of been blurred in some sense.
So they definitely had their supporters and you saw a lot of political muscle get involved in this deal. Again, the most recent of course, is that the government dropped its indictment of them. And so my understanding is no longer under threat of criminal prosecution.
Lori Walsh:
All right, so what happens? A lot of political muscle, there's a press conference at some point.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, with Brooke Rollins.
Lori Walsh:
With Brooke Rollins.
Jonathan Ellis:
The USDA secretary. Yeah. So she sort of, I would say emceed it, in a way. But I mean you had Governor Larry Rhoden out there, you had two-thirds of our congressional delegation, and Senator Mike Rounds. My understanding early on, Wyoming Representative Harriet Hageman and Senator Rounds early on were involved in this writing letters on their behalf to then-USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. Dusty Johnson got involved.
Apparently Governor Rhoden contended in his speech that he — This is at the press conference in Washington — that he'd been working behind the scenes to try to help them out. But so there was a lot of political muscle brought in on behalf of this family and really it kind of took across the state in certain political circles, it became kind of a big deal.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. What's happening with the big deal that it became? Why now?
Jonathan Ellis:
Just kind of a land dispute with the federal government, right?
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Changing administrations, governor's race, all that plays in.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, I suppose there's some of that that plays into it. But even before some of that, the whole prospect of a family getting sideways with the federal government, with the powerful federal government, I mean that has a lot of appeal to some people.
Like, "Hey, why is the federal government bullying these people?"
Lori Walsh:
Right. It's public land was the accusation.
Jonathan Ellis:
That they had fenced off public.
Lori Walsh:
Which has now been dismissed.
Jonathan Ellis:
Correct.
Lori Walsh:
The accusation in the court was that they had moved their fence line to take over land that belongs to the public, essentially.
Jonathan Ellis:
Correct. That belonged to the federal grasslands.
Lori Walsh:
Okay. What happens next? Anything? Civil cases? No?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, I mean that's always a prospect. That could happen. I mean, if in fact, and we never did see the outcome of the survey, but if in fact that the survey were to show that they had fenced off at some point in the family history, fenced off public land, I mean, there's probably going to be some kind of negotiation about that. What to do.
Lori Walsh:
For now, dismissed criminal charges. Yeah.
Jonathan Ellis:
For now, yep. It's gone. It's done.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Impact on the family?
Jonathan Ellis:
Early on, it was my understanding that the family had, well, for one thing, they were indicted separately. The husband and wife were indicted separately. And when they were released out on bail, the standard admonishment was they did this, judges do this all the time, that co-defendants aren't supposed to talk with each other. No communication.
Well, obviously that's impossible with the husband and wife. And so the admonishment was that you can't talk about this case. They had to go through either a family spokesperson who was a friend or their lawyers. So in theory, they couldn't talk about the case.
Lori Walsh:
The case, yeah.
Jonathan Ellis:
But it was my understanding that at least early on that they were concerned that they might be arrested. They sent two of their two children to live with family or friends.
Lori Walsh:
All right. What else are you working on? What's happening in the world of state politics now?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, right now, I mean, right now I'm writing transportation stories and some stuff like that. I'm writing a story about an issue in Yankton that has got a lot of people in that community talking about a building, a piece of land, that the Yankton City Commission had sold off a couple years ago for a gun manufacturer. And they were questions about what was going on.
How come there hasn't been more progress in terms of seeing people employed there? And I talked to the owner of that company yesterday and he said, "Everything is moving forward the way we expected it to. We were never going to employ 30 people. We were only going to employ a handful of people and we were going to make these precision parts."
So the city says that the landowners fulfill all of their obligations to the city. So that's an interesting issue down in Yankton. A lot of people in the community have been talking about that.
Lori Walsh:
So we do have our first declared candidate for our governor's race in Jon Hansen and Karla Lems. And do you see other people positioning themselves, announcements? What do you make of the governor's race right now? What are your personal thoughts?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, behind the scenes, there's a lot of that going on, a lot of positioning. And I'm beginning to hear that probably Marty Jackley might be running for attorney general again. And then that's not confirmed. I'm sure Marty could call me after he hears this and say, "Hey."
Lori Walsh:
"Wrong, wrong."
Jonathan Ellis:
But we kind of thought going into, before Donald Trump was elected and then Kristi Noem was moved out into his administration, that it seemed that the presumptive head-to-head on the Republican side would be Dusty Johnson and Jackley. Now that's really reversed with Larry Rhoden.
That's changed, the dynamic has changed, quite a bit with Larry Rhoden being governor now, and given sort of an opportunity to run somewhat as an incumbent. So that dynamic has changed, but you see a lot of behind the scenes positioning for sure.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Is he behaving like a candidate who wants to run again?
Jonathan Ellis:
Is Larry Rhoden?
Lori Walsh:
Mm-hm.
Jonathan Ellis:
Absolutely.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. In what way?
Jonathan Ellis:
Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think he's back in Sioux Falls, he's doing these economic development tours. He's touring, going around the state. I mean, obviously unofficial business, but that's getting him out into the communities and that's serves a dual purpose.
Lori Walsh:
And one of the first things people asked me when he became governor was again and again, who's Larry Rhoden? And not everybody knew who he was as Lieutenant Governor. He served with a very high profile governor. So getting his name recognition in places where people might not know him as a very smart move as governor, but also the smart political move for the future.
Jonathan Ellis:
For sure.
Lori Walsh:
Sure. How about Congressman Johnson? Do we see him making moves into a campaign for governor? Does he go up against Rhoden, do you think?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, I will say this, he's got a lot of money to be able to do it. And I think Dusty Johnson has been popular throughout his political career, but he's also, I think, rubbed some of the more hardcore Donald Trump's people wrong, who are maybe looking for a conservative alternative. And that's where Jon Hansen hopes to fill that void.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. You think he has a strong chance? The first early polling numbers shows that he has a long hill to climb. But those are pretty early numbers.
Jonathan Ellis:
They are. I don't take a whole lot of stock in polling at this time. It'll be interesting to see. Again, a lot of these races depend on how much support you can get financially and how much money can he raise? I frankly was surprised that he decided to run I thought of him as maybe an attorney general candidate.
Lori Walsh:
Interesting. Yeah.
Jonathan Ellis:
So it did surprise me when I was hearing that he was actually going to run.
Lori Walsh:
How do you think the race for Sioux Falls mayor is going to impact who the Democrats put up as a gubernatorial candidate, if at all?
Jonathan Ellis:
I haven't thought about that. I mean, we had Jamie Smith on our podcast last week and we asked him about running and he says, "I wouldn't rule it out, necessarily." So he didn't say, no, he's not.
Lori Walsh:
Running for governor?
Jonathan Ellis:
For mayor.
Lori Walsh:
He didn't rule out running for mayor.
Jonathan Ellis:
Right. So, obviously he was their governor candidate and ran fairly strongly and did very well in Sioux Falls. So you've got to think that he's going to be an early potential favorite. Now, what that does, I mean that eliminates a candidate, a strong candidate for a political party that doesn't have a particularly deep bench.
