It Takes the GOP To Create Equal Opportunity for Women

Nancy Pelosi was Speaker for four years but never took care of the women in Congress the way John Boehner will:

Call it congressional potty parity.

House Speaker-to-be John Boehner is planning to install the first-ever women's restroom next to the floor of the House of Representatives.

Boehner's office says he'll direct the Architect of the Capitol to convert an office into a ladies' room just steps away from where lawmakers cast votes and debate legislation. It mirrors the space occupied by a men's restroom on the other side of the House chamber.

Female members of the House have long complained that while their male colleagues can duck in and out of a men's room right next to the chamber, their closest available restroom is much further away in the Congressional Women's Reading Room, across the ornate Statuary Hall filled with sculptures of prominent Americans.

The new restroom will be located in what's now the office of the House parliamentarian — the official who advises lawmakers on legislative procedure. That office will be relocated.

Boehner said the change was "long overdue."

When he takes the gavel in January, Boehner will replace the first female Speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The new, Republican-controlled Congress will have 71 female members.

And they owe their comfort to John Boehner.