With one week left in election filing period, what will Rep. Madison Cawthorn do?

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — North Carolina's new voting maps have been finalized and political hopefuls across the state are announcing where they plan to run.

However, one candidate has kept quiet on what he's going to do: U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn.

What are his options?

It's unclear if Rep. Cawthorn will seek reelection back in the 11th District or if he'll try his luck elsewhere, as he'd initially planned to do.

He has until Tuesday, March 1, to withdraw as a 13th District candidate and until midday Friday, March 4, to file for another seat.

Dr. Chris Cooper, a Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor at Western Carolina University, broke down some of Rep. Cawthorn's options.

"I think his decision is going to be whether to come back home to the 11th, whether to run in the 10th district in between, against Patrick McHenry -- probably not a great idea for most folks -- or to run in the 14th, which is closer to the Charlotte media market, but would be a very democratically heavy district," Cooper said. "We are coming right down to the wire with three frankly not great decisions for Madison Cawthorn."

There's also a chance, too, he doesn't run at all.

Cooper said waiting until the last minute to announce where he's going to run is likely strategic.

"I think with Madison Cawthorn, I have come to expect the unexpected, and I think he kind of likes it that way actually," Cooper said.

News 13 reached out to Cawthorn's spokesperson for comment and has not yet heard back.

Challenges to his candidacy

Cawthorn keeps quiet on his plans but is not mum on efforts to disqualify him from running for office.

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On Friday, he spoke about challenges to his candidacy at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida.

"Because of what happened on January 6th, they're sort of trying to say, and I just thought they were trying to get a catchy tagline for their headlines, they started throwing out the words seditionist and insurrectionist," Cawthorn said Friday.

"If they are successful in being able to keep me off the ballot, it will set a precedent, that anyone who had questions or some concerns about the 2020 election and what happened there, they maybe expressed it on Facebook or on Twitter, then they will be able to bar every single one of those people from holding office in America," Cawthorn continued.

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In early January, a group of North Carolina voters filed legal challenges against Cawthorn's 2022 candidacy for reelection.

The challenge alleges that Cawthorn is constitutionally disqualified from public office under the "Disqualification Clause" in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, based on reasonable suspicion that he helped facilitate the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

"Ultimately, to the question of did Madison Cawthorn participation in an insurrection? If he did, does that mean he's not allowed to run for office under the 14th Amendment?" Cooper said. "The state board of elections or a panel chosen by the state board is going to make that call."

However, this week, those challenges were deemed ineligible, due to the new Congressional map that was approved.

"Given that the districts have changed, the people that filed the complaint don't actually live in the district Madison Cawthorn runs in, and to make matters more complicated, we don't really know what district Madison Cawthorn's going to run in," Cooper said.

However, if and when Cawthorn does file, those legal challenges can be refiled, and the voters who filed the initial ones intend to do so.

Free Speech For People, the co-lead counsel for the voters who challenged Rep. Cawthorn's candidacy, provided the following statement:

"We will be refiling this challenge on behalf of voters who live in the congressional district which Madison Cawthorn selects for his candidacy."

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With the May primary not too far off, though, that won't give the NC State Board of Elections (NCSBE) a lot of time to investigate those future challenges. Cooper said that could also be playing a role in why Cawthorn is waiting so long to announce where he'll run.

"This challenge can't kick back up until he's selected a district. So, the longer he waits, the tighter the timeline for his challengers," Cooper said. "There's going to be strategy on what he chooses and strategy right now on when he makes that decision, as well."

Cooper said the timing is critical right now for Cawthorn.

"Some folks might say it's to his benefit to wait till the last minute, to wait till the last minute to decide to give the challenge less time. Other folks might argue, 'No, no, it's better off if he gets in early to maybe box out potential opponents,'" Cooper said.

If Cawthorn is disqualified from running for office, Cooper said that could have big implications for other politicians.

"There could be implications for Madison Cawthorn, but there could also be implications for other members of Congress, and of course for former President Trump, as well," Cooper said.

Even if future challenges fail to disqualify him from office, it could still have a big impact. The NCSBE's process of investigating the challenges could mean getting Cawthorn to talk about January 6th under oath.

"So, I think it's very possible that the challengers are unsuccessful in their attempts to actually get him out of office, or get him to not run, but are successful at getting him under oath and getting him to talk about things that he probably would prefer to not talk about under oath," Cooper said. "What does Cawthorn have to disclose in this process, and how might that affect other politicians?"

In the meantime, Cawthorn is asking a federal court to rule if the NCSBE even has the right to hear those challenges and potentially keep him out of office. His attorney claims the NCSBE may not have followed proper procedures in dismissing complaints against his filing. They're also asking the federal court not to dismiss the case, but make the ruling on whether the compliant process is legal. The hearing will continue in March.

History of 14th amendment challenges

Cooper said it's not common at all for voters to challenge a politician's candidacy under the disqualification clause in the 14th Amendment.

"This was one of the reconstruction amendments, right, so this is just post-Civil War. So, the initial idea was, 'Hey, we need to keep the Confederates out of office," Cooper explained. "We rarely, rarely, rarely see challenges on this."

He said while the circumstances and procedures were vastly different then, the last time this happened was, ironically, to another politician with ties to Western NC.

"Zebulon Vance was actually the last statewide elected official who came under this 14th amendment kind of challenge," Cooper said.

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Cooper said Vance was trying to get into the U.S. Senate at the time and was kept out of office once, but ended up in office later.