The Civic Party joined the League of Social Democrats (LSD) in the "Five Constituencies Referendum" campaign in 2010 to pressure the government to implement the universal suffrage of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council in 2012 over the constitutional reform package.
The party received a largest victory by winning 32 seats in the 2019 District Council election in the midst of the citywide anti-government protests.
In July 2020 after Beijing installed the national security law on Hong Kong, three of the five Civic incumbent legislators, Alvin Yeung, Kwok Ka-ki and Dennis Kwok were barred from running for re-election and subsequently unseated, which resulted in the mass resignations of the pro-democracy legislators, leaving the party with no representation in the legislature for the first time and Yeung's resignation as party leader.
They were joined by two other incumbents, the then functional constituency Legislative Councillors Mandy Tam (Accountancy) and Fernando Cheung (Social Welfare), as well as a number of pan-democratic academics.
The Civic Party's first electoral test was its decision to run Alan Leong in the March 2007 "small circle" Chief Executive election, challenging incumbent Donald Tsang.
Leong's winning sufficient nomination votes to enter the race was viewed as a breakthrough in what previously had been seen as an entirely Beijing-orchestrated process.
However a safe margin in the Election Committee to assure Donald Tsang re-election, Leong eventually lost by 123 to 649 votes as a result.
In addition, Fernando Cheung's decision to give up his Social Welfare FC seat in favour of running in the New Territories West geographic constituency (GC) proved disastrous.
In response to the electoral reform package proposed by the government, the party joined hand with the League of Social Democrats, which belonged to the relatively radical wing the pan-democracy camp, to launch the "Five Constituency Referendum" by having five legislators resigning and participating in a territory-wide by-election to demand genuine universal suffrage.
The claim of by-election as referendum expectedly received serve attacks from the Beijing government and the pro-Beijing camp in Hong Kong as unconstitutional.
The election turnout showed with only 17.7 percent of the registered voters voted despite Alan Leong and Tanya Chan were re-elected.
After the by-election Chairwoman Audrey Eu was invited by the Chief Executive Donald Tsang to a televised debate over the reform package.
Alan Leong took over from Audrey Eu as Party Leader uncontestedly, while Kenneth Chan beat Professor Joseph Cheng by an 11-vote margin after a heated campaign that saw some complaining about the fairness of the contest.
[8] In the 2011 District Council elections, the Civic Party was hammered by the pro-Beijing media due to its close ties with the legal advisers on the lawsuit of the right of abode for foreign domestic workers who represented one such Filipina.
In Legislative Council by-election to fill the seat left vacant by Ronny Tong, Alvin Yeung, a young barrister defeated Beijing-loyalist Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) candidate Holden Chow and localist camp Hong Kong Indigenous candidate Edward Leung Tin-kei, receiving 160,880 votes.
The arrest of leader Alvin Yeung, and ex-legislators Jeremy Tam and Kwok Ka-ki in 2021 for "subversion" dealt a major blow to the party.