Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther Among Candidates For Texas Senate District 30
(CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther, who made headlines earlier this year after she defied stay-at-home orders during the pandemic and was jailed, has put her name in the running for the Texas Senate.
Luther, along with former Denton Mayor Chris Watts and Rep. Drew Springer, is running for state Senate District 30 after the seat became vacant when state Sen. Pat Fallon became the Republican nominee for the 4th Congressional District.
The list of candidates for the vacant seat came after the Friday deadline for filing. The rest of the candidates are small business owner Craig Carter, software engineer Andy Hopper and Jacob Minter of IBEW. Minter is running as a Democrat, while the other candidates are running as Republicans.
Senate District 30 covers areas west and northwest of the DFW Metroplex and areas of Denton and Collin counties.
Luther entered the national spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic after she reopened her business, Salon A La Mode, in April in defiance of shutdown orders, which were put into place by officials to curb the spread of the virus.
During a court appearance in May, Dallas judge Eric Moye found her in contempt of court after she refused to apologize for her actions, which included publicly tearing up a cease-and-desist letter from the county, and sentenced her to seven days in jail. With the help of state leaders like Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott, she was set free two days after sentencing.
On Thursday, she launched her campaign for Texas Senate District 30 to "fight for Texas Values and find out why we aren't advancing conservative solutions that are best for Texans."
"I'm just a normal person whose life and livelihood was threatened by the government. I realize the need for real people who recognize the real problems that face our state. I will fight for Senate District 30 and push back against the Austin insiders who want to control our community," she said in her campaign announcement.
