Marc, Let me play devil’s advocate and offer a different way of looking at this, as well as a modest proposal. If you can bear with me through this rather lengthy comment, please tell me what you think. Some set-up is required: The 2000 census says that 16.6% of Rhode Island’s population lives in Providence. This is a little out-of-date, but not a lot here depends on this, so it should do. In 2006, 27,900 children attended Providence Public Schools. This was 19% of the 147,083 children in RI public schools. Also in 2006, Providence received $185,048,912 in state education aid. That was 27.8% of the total state aid package of $666,277,071. (I gathered this data some time ago and haven’t double-checked it, but I believe it is pretty accurate). I understand your argument to be something like this: The situation described above is already unfair, because non-Providence residents are subsidizing, through their state income taxes, the cost of educating Providence children. A funding formula that futher shifts education funding from property taxes to state income taxes would be even more unfair. [Additionally, there could be an overall increase in total spending on education but, for what follows, let’s leave aside whether or not there will be or should be such an increase. That’s another debate, and it does not logically have to be part of a change in the sources of education funding.] Several counter-arguments to yours have been made: Providence has more hard-to-educate children (English language learners for instance) than other communities. Even so, it spends less per-pupil than some. Providence’s 2006 property tax rate was $29.65 per $1K, the highest in the state. The average was $16.46. Thus, Providence is already “taxed-out” to a greater extent than other communities. Moreover, even if it is not “fair” that… Read more »

aargh. That was for Andrew, not Marc of course. I appear to be having a hard time today.

Baker v. Carr (1962 ruled that the issue of reapportionment was not a “political question”* and could be decided by the courts. Two years later the USSC got two cases- Wesberry v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Simms. Both were decided based on the idea that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment requires “1 person, 1 vote”, which translated into the principle that every legislative district must have the same population.
Wesberry applied to Congressional districts. Reynolds applied to state legislatures. Reynolds says that the Constitution forbids states from having US senate-type arrangements because they treat voters unequally and lead to minority rule. For instance, Max’s proposal would let the 15K people in Foster and Glocester outvote the 175K people in providence 2-to-1. I’m guessing that’s exactly what Max would like to see happen.
Baker/Reynolds/Wesberry were not uncontroversial at the time. Chief Justice Warren thought it was more important than Brown v. Board. A movement to amend the constitution (not surprisingly, started by legislators who were about to lose their districts) nearly got the required 2/3 of state legislatures signed up. Today, however, after 44 years, I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
*One of the most famous USSC cases involving the political questions doctrine is Luther v. Borden, which arose out of Rhode Island’s Dorr rebellion of 1841.