Shelley Luther

Shelley Luther (born May 12, 1973) is an American salon owner and politician who has represented the 62nd district in the Texas House of Representatives since 2025.

Early life Luther was born on May 12, 1973. In 2020, she received national attention for her decision to keep the business open during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, she declared that she would remain open and attended a rally protesting lockdowns at which she tore up the cease-and-desist letter. Prior to the sentencing, the judge "gave Luther an opportunity to apologize and promise not to reopen her salon until she was allowed to do so," and said that she could possibly then receive just a fine "in lieu of the incarceration which you've demonstrated that you have so clearly earned." Abbott later met with President Donald Trump about Texas's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and discussed Luther, with Trump noting of her release: "Good. I was watching the salon owner, and she looked so great, so professional, so good. And she was talking about her children. She has to feed her children."

After the incident, those involved in Luther's sentencing received "harsh blowback" from Republicans.

Luther, after being released, created a foundation called "Courage to Stand", describing its goal as supporting "hairstylists and other small businesses closed by government orders and crushed by the economic fallout". One of her key campaign themes was putting an end to the "shutdown madness", declaring that "the first thing that I would do is start going after Gov. Abbott's lockdown and getting these nursing homes open, the bars and then restaurants all the way open, because I think it is absolutely ridiculous that places like Florida can open all the way today, and here we are in Texas being embarrassed that we're still closed down." One of six candidates in the election, she placed first and received 32.0% of the votes (22,242 votes), but as she did not gain over 50%, it forced a runoff between her and Republican Drew Springer. She was defeated in the runoff, receiving 25,235 votes (43.5%) to Springer's 32,761 (56.5%). She faced off against Democrat Tiffany Drake in the general election and won with 77.7% of the votes.