TEXAS, USA — Chances are that at some point over the last four years, you’ve heard of Shelley Luther. Chances are that you might also have some preconceived notions about her. And she knows this.
As Luther, a salon owner who made national headlines for defying COVID-19 shutdown orders. prepares to head to Austin as representative-elect for Texas House District 62, she says she’s already surprised many folks who tell her she’s nothing like what they thought.
“They saw me arguing publicly with the Governor on national TV and that’s how they met me. If anybody else would have been in that position of like, you’re in the biggest fight of your life and TV cameras are in your face the whole time and you’re having to fight for what you’re doing, people would think, man, what a ‘B(----),’ you know, or like wow, she thinks she’s something, or something like that,” Luther told us on Y’all-itics.
Luther’s journey from an everyday Texan nobody had ever heard of to representative-elect began in early 2020, shortly after COVID shut down most of Texas.
State and local “stay-at-home” orders meant “non-essential” businesses were forced to close, including Luther’s Salon À La Mode, which she still owns.
But after about a month, Luther says she got a call from one of her hair stylists who said she hadn’t eaten for a couple of days because she was trying to feed her kids.
“And I’m like, 'OK, well, I’m not going to be the one responsible for that.' And so, I said, 'I talked to my husband, and I said let’s just open the salon,'” Luther said. “And in our mind, we were just thinking about ourselves and our little business and helping them. We had no idea it was going to be like, honestly, a worldwide event.”
You might remember the images at the time of Luther publicly tearing up the cease-and-desist order she received after re-opening.
A state district judge found her in contempt of court, and she was sentenced to seven days in jail.
She spent three days and two nights behind bars before the Texas Supreme Court ordered her early release.
“A lesson that we learned here is we can’t pick winners and losers in any situation. We can’t say someone is essential or non-essential when that’s the way that they provide for their family. And so, that was the biggest thing that we learned from that. The dog groomer next door to the salon was open and essential,” said Luther.
Later in 2020, she ran as a Republican for a Texas Senate seat in District 30, which covers areas of North Texas including Sherman, Denton, Weatherford and Stephenville.
Luther lost in a special runoff election in December 2020 to Drew Springer.
Nearly two years later, she ran for Texas House District 62 in the Sherman area, but lost to incumbent Rep. Reggie Smith in the March 2022 primary.
Four months after that, in April 2023, her life was changed forever and her political career placed on hold when she suffered a brain aneurysm.
Also a singer at the time, Luther and her husband had just returned home from a gig when she noticed her head felt like it was going to “explode” off her shoulders, and she immediately knew she was about to die.
“I went to one hospital. They told my husband they couldn’t save me there. And then they took me to Medical City Plano and the doctors there said the same thing, 'they couldn’t save me,” explained Luther. “The first surgery that they did was unsuccessful. And then after I was able to get through another surgery, they were able to put some technology in my head that stopped the bleeding at least. But I had already had eight strokes by, you know, in the first week.”
Luther would be in a hospital bed for 26 days, the first ten spent in a coma. And once released, she went through several months of speech and physical therapy.
After recovering, she ran for District 62 again this year, winning this time.
Luther says she’s ready to continue fighting once she gets to Austin.
Her priorities include protecting the semiconductor industry in her district, limiting the Governor’s emergency powers, and closing the border to illegal immigrants.
When it comes to President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation plan, Luther argues that the government will first go after violent criminals accused of felony offenses and anybody on a government watch list, and that will take a while. So, she says she’s not worried about it impacting the Texas economy.
“I think a lot of those people have work visas or are here legally. And I don’t think that if we clean out the country and make sure that it’s only legal immigrants here, and we speed up the process to get legal, that we would have a problem,” said Luther.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has also made clear that school choice will be the number one priority when lawmakers return to Austin.
But Luther, a former public school teacher herself, says it isn’t a priority for her because it doesn’t impact her district as much as others, because they don’t have many private or charter schools.
Make no mistake about it, though. Luther is solidly behind Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs. But she says she’ll fight to keep that bill separate from a bill that increases funding to public schools. Luther thinks that gives both pieces of legislation better chances of passing.
In fact, during her campaign, Luther told voters ESAs will pass and they should send someone to Austin who will fight for public schools, particularly in rural areas.
“I will sign onto a perfect ESA bill. But I also, in return, want to make sure that the public, rural public schools in my district get what they need. Those teachers are making about $45,000 a year,” Luther said.
And as a high-profile freshman lawmaker, Luther expects to face challenges in Austin.
Just don’t expect her to back down from anything… or anyone.
“I just don’t want to play games. And it’s a lot of games in the Texas House. It’s a tit-for-tat and not just doing what’s right. And so, I’m not afraid of it, but I’m there to get stuff done,” she said.
By the way, since she defied Gov. Greg Abbott’s shutdown orders, she says she's only spoken to him once in person. And that was only recently after she won the election. She said they didn’t talk about “that matter” yet, but she hopes they do.
“I just want to sit in a room with him, actually, and just, you know, just put it behind us because it’s a big elephant in the room right now, I feel like. I’m not mad about it. I’m really not,” she said.
Luther goes in depth with the Jasons on a number of other topics including her new book, her thoughts on the next Speaker of the Texas House, her relationship with Texas GOP megadonors Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn and why she’s sometimes identified as the kangaroo lady and how that helps break the ice. Listen to the entire podcast to learn more. Cheers!