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Prior research has found that descriptive representation by race, ethnicity, or gender increases political action, but it has paid less attention to how the intersection of these identities influences participation. We extend this literature by assessing the effects on voter turnout of collective descriptive representation in U.S. state legislatures on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and their intersections. We argue that members of historically excluded groups respond to the overall composition of their state's legislature.

Although the idea of intersectionality has been widely accepted by social, political, and feminist theorists, little work on intersection has made its way into empirical studies within the social sciences. Because of the diversity of the California electorate, the 2003 California recall election provides a unique opportunity to explore differences in vote choice among women and men from different racial groups. In addition, the context of the recall, including the existence of allegations of sexual misconduct against one of the front-runners in the race for a replacement candidate, makes it an excellent case for testing the existence of intersection. We find that despite the unique nature of this election, partisanship was a significant predictor of vote choice. Additionally, we find that voting on the recall was racially polarized, and that gender affected vote choice more among whites than among other racial groups. These findings have important implications for theoretical models within the subfields of gender and politics and race and politics. At a minimum, our findings suggest that models testing for the effects of race, class, and gender in American society need to treat these factors as mutually constitutive categories of marginalization and privilege, rather than as simple, discrete categories.

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