[3] Harper, was a Democratic member of the Tennessee Senate for the 19th district, which is composed of a large portion of Davidson County including the urban core of Nashville.

Senator Harper's eight-year tenure on the Metropolitan Council saw her lead the successful fight to close the Bordeaux Landfill via a number of protests and blockades of dump trucks, during which she was arrested along with her fellow community activists.

She passed legislation on a range of causes, including the establishment of a fee waiver to provide students from low-income homes with school supplies and lunches; mandatory insurance coverage of breast reconstruction symmetry for breast cancer survivors; increased legal protections to stop financial exploitation of the elderly by their caretakers; and the safe haven law to save abandoned babies.

Harper played an integral role in the economic development of the 19th Senate District, helping win passage of numerous amendments to state budgets to benefit the citizens of her district through job training programs, workforce development efforts, and capital projects like the Nashville Music City Center,[7] where she worked to amend Tennessee's usury law to allow Nashville to sell the bonds to build the facility.

[8] In 1996, Harper was one of only two state senators that did not vote in support of a bill to ban gay marriage in Tennessee, instead choosing to abstain.