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The New York Times John M. Broder January 4, 2007 09:09 PM

In a day of transition and pageantry, exultant Democrats on Thursday took control of both houses of Congress for the first time in a dozen years and elected the first woman to be speaker of the House.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California took the speaker's gavel at 2:08 p.m. from Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, whom she defeated by a vote of 233 to 202, the 31-seat margin of the new Democratic majority. The floor and the packed galleries erupted in cheers when the vote was announced. Even Republicans grudgingly acknowledged the unprecedented nature of the day on which a woman ascended to power on Capitol Hill by rising as one to

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