A hypothetical situation;
An amendment is proposed on the floor of the House to change the formula in a bill for how funding is allocated.
The amendment presents a pro-urban allocation which provides a greater share of funding for larger cities compared to a baseline per-capita allocation.
Urban center representatives stand up and argue how their cities need a higher reimbursement rate because the issue at hand is costlier to fix or more prevalent in their environment.
Rural representatives stand up and argue they need the baseline funding to run an effective program.
A vote is taken, and 54% of votes approve the amendment, urban center reps effectively pooling their votes to enact the funding paradigm that most benefited their constituents.
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The moral of the story is that it’s a lot more complicated than 1 person 1 vote.
Often times policies may benefit a rural area over and urban environment or vice versa. One type of community benefiting and the expense of another. Cities already carry a massive voting advantage, because, that’s where most people live!
When bills pass on a majority vote, urban already wins over rural every time. The rural areas maybe can form blocks to help push otherwise divided city reps one way or another, but policy debate is already dominated by urban voters, despite the claim of urban votes “counting less”. The simple math belies the reality that urban center reps vote for pro-urban national policies and the rural states with 1 rep sit on the sidelines.
The last place these votes matter, even in the slightest, is in the EC in a closely contested election, and in the Senate. Frankly I’m not convinced more populism is any benefit, or that cities are particularly hurting from a lack of representation.