Name Michael Panter | Role Politician | |
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Education Syracuse University, Harvard Law School | ||
Michael J. "Mike" Panter (born October 10, 1969 in Red Bank, New Jersey) is an American Democratic Party politician and entrepreneur, who served in the New Jersey General Assembly for two terms from 2004 until 2008, where he represented the 12th legislative district. Resident of Shrewsbury, New Jersey.
Panter served in the Assembly on the Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee (as Vice Chair), the Environment and Solid Waste Committee and the Transportation and Public Works Committee.
Panter received a B.A. from Syracuse University in History and was awarded a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1995.
He is listed as the managing partner of Panter & Kelly Financial LLC, a firm engaged in the management of corporate pension plans, and as the founder/managing member of Realty Data Systems, a real estate technology and data collection company serving as a government vendor in New Jersey.
Previously, an investment banker with Salomon Smith Barney in New York City handling mergers and acquisitions, he also spent several years practicing as a corporate attorney in New Jersey and New York .
Panter and running mate Robert Lewis Morgan were elected in 2003, ousting incumbent Republicans Michael Arnone and Clare Farragher.
In unofficial results from balloting on Election Day, November 8, 2005, in the 12th district, covering portions of Monmouth and Mercer counties, Republican challenger Jennifer Beck had an edge of over 1,000 votes for one of the two seats in the district. Fewer than three hundred votes separated Republican challenger Declan O'Scanlon and the one-term incumbent Democrats Robert Lewis Morgan and Panter, leaving the race too close to call with O'Scanlon leading. Changes resulting from a malfunctioning voting machine in Marlboro and provisional ballots eventually gave Panter a 73-vote lead over O'Scanlon, and the second seat in the district.
Panter’s 2003 primary and general election victories, and his 2005 re-election, made him the only Democrat to be elected, and re-elected in any legislative district within (predominantly Republican) Monmouth County, NJ in several decades.
In the 2007 elections Democrats Panter and Amy Mallet were defeated on November 6 in a tight race against Republicans Declan O'Scanlon (Little Silver Council president) and attorney Caroline Casagrande.
District 12
Each of the forty districts in the New Jersey Legislature has one representative in the New Jersey Senate and two members in the New Jersey General Assembly. The other representatives from the 12th Legislative District during the 2006-2008 legislative session were: