Political history
Tennessee legislature
In 1986,Purcell was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives [3] where he served for five terms. As House Majority Leader and Chair of the Select Committee on Children and Youth,Purcell's work in the legislature positioned him in the forefront of education,health care,workers compensation,and criminal sentencing reforms.
Vanderbilt University
Purcell retired from the General Assembly in 1996 to become director of the Child and Family Policy Center at the Vanderbilt Institute of Public Policy Studies,a nationally recognized center building a bridge between academic research,politics,and best practices to benefit children and their families.
Mayor
Although many suspected that he would run for governor in 1998,Purcell instead announced that he would enter the race for Mayor of Metro Nashville. The incumbent mayor,Phil Bredesen,opted not to run for a third term after discovering that a 1994 amendment limiting city council members to two consecutive terms appeared to be worded in a way that made it apply to mayors as well. Purcell's main challengers were former Mayor Richard Fulton and then Vice Mayor Jay West. In the general election,Purcell came up just short of an outright majority,forcing him into a runoff with Fulton,who announced he would not actively contest the ensuing runoff. The runoff still had to take place per state law,however,and Purcell won. He was sworn in as mayor on September 24.
Purcell was reelected to a second term in 2003 with a record-setting 84.8 percent of the vote. Purcell is the second native Northerner to serve as mayor of Nashville (at least since the merger of Nashville and Davidson County in 1963);the first was Bredesen.
Retirement from public office
Purcell opted not to run for a third term due to the same amendment that led Bredesen to stand down after two terms,and stepped down at the end of his term in 2007. In the fall of 2007 he served as a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics,and later as the Dean of the school of Public Service and Urban Affairs at Tennessee State University. He was succeeded as mayor by Metro's law director,Karl Dean.
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