Salon owner who was jailed for bucking Covid lockdowns wins seat in Texas House of Representatives

"I stood up against COVID tyranny, and I was thrown in jail for it. That’s how hard I’m going to fight for the priorities of grassroots conservatives. I will champion the Legislative Priorities of the Republican Party of Texas in the House," she said during her campaign.

A judge sentenced Shelley Luther to seven days in jail for civil and criminal contempt of court when she dared to reopen Salon à la Mode in Plano in 2020 before she was officially allowed to do so. Luther defeated her Democratic opponent, Tiffany Drake with more than 75 percent of the vote to claim victory in Texas House District 62, Fox4 reported. She had run unsuccessfully for the Texas Senate in 2020 and for the state House in 2022.

She argued for the creation of “A Texas Department of Homeland Security to prevent illegal entry and trafficking, and to deport illegal aliens to Mexico or to their nations of origin.” Luther campaigned for Texas elections “requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.” She also strongly supported parental rights and “ banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology in schools and libraries.”

The salon owner became a symbol of resistance to Covid mandates and was prepared to go to prison to defend her values and her business. “I have no choice. I need to feed my family, and my stylists could not feed their families,” Luther said at her sentencing. Her story enraged foes of Covid lockdowns and within days she was out of the slammer after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) reversed state Covid protocols and allowed stores to reopen and the Supreme Court of Texas ordered her released from Dallas County jail.

“After about a month, my hairstylist were calling me saying I can’t feed my kids, I don’t know what to do, so we just made the decision to open back up, and I ended up in jail,” Luther told Fox and Friends, according to The New York Post.

“I wasn’t super political before any of this, but I’m like, you know, somebody has to do something about this. And so we ran for our first office shortly after that.”

Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy noted the double standard that existed during the Covid pandemic, where Democratic politicians and elites continued to frequent salons and restaurants that others were forbidden to visit. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited her hair salon and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) got a haircut.

Luther said she isn’t focusing on the hypocrisy of Democrats but is happy to be alive after having a massive health crisis during the election campaign. “I had a brain aneurysm a month and a half ago and almost died. And so for me to walk out of that, being in the ICU for almost 30 days, the recovery from that, and then putting my name in to run … I knew it was my time,” she said.