Former salon owner jailed for defying COVID rules wins Texas House seat after brain aneurysm recovery
For Shelley Luther, the fight for freedom is a family tradition.
Luther, a former Dallas salon owner who made national headlines for defying COVID-19 lockdown orders, has won a seat in the Texas Legislature, where she will represent House District 62 in the state's upcoming legislative session.
House District 62 represents several North Texas counties, including Grayson, Fannin, Delta and Franklin.
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Her election marks a dramatic political comeback after she made waves in 2020 for refusing to close Salon A La Mode in Dallas during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the height of the lockdowns, Luther continued operating her business in defiance of city and state mandates, which led to her arrest and three days in jail. She was released only after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott intervened on her behalf and the Texas Supreme Court ordered her immediate release.
"My dad's a Vietnam veteran of 26 years in the Marine Corps," Luther told CP via phone Monday. "I could just imagine him saying, 'You know, I fought for this country. I fought for all the rights that we have,' and for me to just give them up so easily, I couldn't do it."
But then when I got out of jail, a Senate seat opened up in the district that I live in, which is pretty ironic," she added.
Luther, a Republican, ran for Texas Senate District 30 in 2020 but lost, and in 2022, she also fell short in her bid for Texas House District 62. She won the seat in a resounding victory last week, defeating Democrat Tiffany Drake with about 77% of the vote.
Following her two defeats, Luther said she thought her political career was behind her.
"After I lost the first two campaigns, my husband and I actually decided that I was not going to be in politics anymore," she explained. "We said, 'Maybe that's not God's plan for us,' and so we started going back to our normal life."
But in April 2023, Luther suffered a brain aneurysm, leaving her in a coma and hospitalized for nearly a month. After months of speech and physical therapy, she says she decided in December to give it one more shot.
Luther said that while her medical emergency was difficult, it brought some much-needed perspective to her political pursuits.
"Honestly, God showed me that wasn't the biggest story. He's the biggest story," she said. "If you know anything about what happened to me in the hospital in that event, it's an absolute miracle that I'm even alive, much less walking around and then even more, running and winning a campaign."
Upon taking office in January 2025, Luther says her legislative priorities will include border security and revisiting the "so-called emergency powers," which saw her thrust into the political spotlight just a few short years ago. That includes, says Luther, preventing the government from unconstitutionally shutting down private businesses ever again.
"The power our government had during COVID, in the so-called emergency powers that they use to create these mandates, how they're unconstitutional and not right," she said. "So in Texas, we want to make sure that when we are in a quote-unquote emergency situation, that the government is not allowed to do basically whatever they want. And so, we're definitely filing legislation to prevent that in the future."
Luther and her husband live just outside Tom Bean, Texas, a city with a population of just under 1,000 residents, where they operate a horse and animal rescue. The Luthers are also members of King's Trail Cowboy Church in nearby Whitewright.
She says while she's always believed in God, attended church and even played in a worship band, her faith walk has been forever transformed by what she went through in that hospital bed.
"When you go through something like what happened to me a year-and-a-half ago and literally almost died, you become closer to God than you could ever imagine," Luther said. "I can't imagine my life without Him now, and I can't imagine getting through anything without Him, and I don't believe in coincidence anymore ever."
From political defeats and medical emergencies to a seat in the Texas Legislature, Luther says she knows whatever comes next, the Lord is in control of it all.
"I know it's all part of God's plan," she said. "And even when it doesn't go my way, I just trust that he has my best interests and the interests of the people around me. And I just trust it and move on.
"It's hard to explain, but I'm just OK with everything. Everything's going to be OK because God's in control. And I've never had that."
