Women of the House is a spin-off of Designing Women starring Delta Burke, who had reconciled with producers after a bitter, highly publicized, off-screen battle.

Premise

Suzanne Sugarbaker's latest husband has died, and as his widow, she assumed his political office for the remainder of his term. Washington, D.C. was ill-prepared for the outspoken, "big, dumb, hick beauty queen's" arrival to the United States House of Representatives, though she did form an unusual bond with then-current President Bill Clinton, who was frequently heard off-screen. Along with her, Suzanne dragged her mentally handicapped brother Jim (Jonathan Banks), her young, adopted daughter Desiree (Brittany Parkyn), and her oft-spoken of (but only once seen) maid, Sapphire Jones (Barbara Montgomery).

Teri Garr starred as Suzanne's press secretary Sissy Emerson, a washed up reporter who had turned to the bottle a few years earlier, but was starting to clean up her act. A pre-Everybody Loves Raymonds Patricia Heaton portrayed Natty Hollingsworth, Suzanne's snooty, conservative, anal-retentive, bun-wearing Administrative Assistant whose Congressman boyfriend was serving a prison sentence. Jennifer Malone (Valerie Mahaffey, Julie Hagerty), known to her co-workers as "Malone," was a vivacious, naive, frail housewife who was recently left by her husband, and whose children were tyrants. The years of sexual repression had taken its toll and Malone had begun to become obsessed with sex. Later seen in the cast was Lisa Rieffel as Veda Walkman, a ditsy Generation Xer who took an internship at the office. In more minor roles were William Newman as Dave, an older gentleman with bad arthritis who worked in the office and Adam Carl as Adam, another intern (which was not the same-named character Carl played in several episodes of Designing Women).