Benjamin Plener Cover

Benjamin (Benji) Plener Cover is an Associate Professor at the University of Idaho (UI) College of Law, where he teaches and writes about Constitutional Law and Election Law. His scholarship focuses on electoral districting, electoral reform, and democratic participation. It has been published, or is forthcoming, in the Stanford Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the U.C. Davis Law Journal, the William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, and Social Science Quarterly. He also authored the chapter on Redistricting Criteria in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of American Election Law. He has served on the executive committee of the Election Law section of the American Association of Law Schools, as well as a peer reviewer for Election Law Journal. His scholarship has been cited by state and federal courts, as well as litigants and scholars. He has taught at UI for ten years, starting as a visiting instructor in 2014, joining the faculty permanently in 2017, and earning tenure in 2022. In addition to Constitutional Law courses and an Election Law seminar, he has taught Torts, Professional Responsibility, State & Local Government Law, Advanced Torts, Property, Remedies, Federal Courts, and the First Amendment.

Professor Cover studied engineering, mathematics, and economics at the University of Toronto; international development at the London School of Economics; and law at Yale. During law school, he founded a nonprofit organization called 24 Hours for Darfur. Upon graduation, he worked on pretrial reform efforts at the public defender’s office in New Orleans as an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellow and Vital Projects Fund grant recipient. He also handled misdemeanor and felony cases in municipal and state court. He then served as the legislative director for New Orleans City Councilmember LaToya Cantrell.

Professor Cover enjoys poutine, keeping up with his family, and pursuing his pipe dream of becoming a commercially and critically unsuccessful singer-songwriter.

• Election Law
• Electoral Districting
• First Amendment

• Burton Ellis Research Scholar, 2019
• Vital Projects Fund Grant Recipient, 2011-2012 
• Arthur P. Liman Public Interest Fellow, 2009-2011

• Quantifying Political Gerrymandering: An Evaluation of the Efficiency Gap Proposal, 70 Stan. L. Rev. 1131(2018) (cited in Ohio A. Philip Randolph Inst. v. Householder, No. 1:18-CV-357, 2019 WL 1969585, at *69, n.733 (S.D. Ohio May 3, 2019))
• The First Amendment Right to a Remedy, 50 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1741 (2017)