On Tuesday afternoon, actor Randy Quaid tweeted that he is thinking about becoming the second B-list celebrity to jump into the attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsome, telling followers he’s “seriously considering a run for governor.”
Quaid tweeted this just before it was announced that the recall petition had met the threshold to be put on the ballot later this year.
It’s not clear whether or not Quaid would even be eligible to run for governor, as he is technically still considered a fugitive in the state of California due to unresolved legal issues stretching back more than a decade. Quaid and his wife, Evi, are wanted in Santa Barbara, California, on felony vandalism charges from 2010 after authorities said they were found squatting in the guesthouse of a home they previously owned.
The couple ended up moving to Canada where Evi was granted citizenship. Quaid was denied his request for permanent residency in Canada but lived there illegally until 2015, when he was arrested after crossing the border into Vermont ahead of being deported by the Canadian government. Authorities in California attempted to extradite him at that time, but a Vermont judge denied the request.
The Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office vowed to continue its efforts to bring the couple to justice at the time but it is not clear what the current status of the case is.
Quaid, a well-known Trump supporter, would presumably run as a Republican, just like fellow Trump supporter Caitlyn Jenner, who announced her intent to run for governor last week. If it happens at all, Quaid’s efforts will almost certainly amount to nothing more than a hopeless vanity campaign at best, but people with long memories will recall how a flood of vanity candidates and grifters turned the 2003 recall of Gray Davis into a circus … and handed the state to Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger.