The Libertarian Party of New York is saddened to share the news of the passing of Christopher B. “Chris” Garvey, the party’s 1998 candidate for Governor of New York and former State Vice-Chair, on July 22, 2023 at the age of 73.
Christopher Garvey attended Columbia University and graduated in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree and went on to attend Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, graduating in 1981 with a Juris Doctor degree. Most recently, he was a patent attorney from 1998 with Nolte, Nolte & Hunter (later Collard & Roe, P.C.) until his retirement in 2019. Among Garvey’s many interests, he was a Revolutionary War reenactor with the Huntington Militia.
Garvey joined the National Libertarian Party on June 2, 1980 and became involved in the Libertarian Party of New York by 1995, when he was elected a Member-At-Large on the State Committee.
In addition to his 1998 run for Governor of New York, Garvey was the party’s candidate for Attorney General in 2006 and 2018, the latter in which he received over 43,000 votes–the most for any Libertarian candidate for New York State Attorney General. He was also the Libertarian candidate for Suffolk County District Attorney (2009, 2013, and 2013), U.S. Congress NY-1 (2016), Suffolk County District Attorney (2017), and Justice of the Supreme Court, 10th Judicial District (2019).
Garvey served in numerous positions in leadership in the party. He served one term as Vice-Chair of the LPNY (2007-2008) and eight terms as a Member-At-Large of the State Committee (1995-1998; 2006-2007; 2010-2014). He was also a member of the State Committee as the county representative for both Suffolk and Nassau Counties over the years, and had more recently served as Vice-Chair of the Nassau County Libertarian Party (2016-2020).
In his position statement for his 1998 run for Governor, Garvey said “the Libertarian Party has been called The Party of Principle, because, rather than entering politics to obtain power over others, Libertarians run to promote and implement a simple principle: ‘People have a right to do anything they wish, except: to initiate force, the threat of force, or fraud against other people or their property.’ Another way to say this is: ‘That government governs best that governs least.’ While the optimum for ‘least’ may be open to debate among libertarians, we all agree that New York State governs too much, and takes too much tax money from those unfortunate enough to be governed by New York State.”
“We are saddened by the passing of Christopher Garvey,” said Andrew Kolstee, Chair of the Libertarian Party of New York. “Chris had a long history with the LPNY as a candidate and state and county committee member and will be greatly missed.”