What the pollster saw. What the prosecutor said. What made the Democrats jump. And what the Legislature will be allowed to spend.

Republican pollster Mike Baselice says the base margin separating Republicans and Democrats in this state election narrowed by 3.62 percentage points. Republicans retain an advantage, but it's skinnier than before. He had a couple other notes of note: Only a quarter of the total vote was cast in places where the GOP's fortunes improved, while 54 percent of the votes were recorded in places where Democratic fortunes improved. Baselice was on a panel talking to the Professional Advocacy Association of Texas.

• That crowd also heard from the new ethics sheriff in town: Travis County District Attorney-elect Rosemary Lehmberg, who'll replace Ronnie Earle in January.

She told the crowd not to expect any change in that office's emphasis on ethics, and told the lobbyist that this is "a most troubling era for your profession in history, particularly in Washington."

Her background was in the trial courts, and she said her approach is more "evidence-based" than Earle's "philosophically based" approach to cases, but left the impression that she's not going easy on people who get out of line.

"I am always ready to hear from someone who made a mistake, but I have little tolerance for those trying to work around the law and even less for those who thumb their nose at the law," she said.

An example of the latter? "Extravagant trips and benefits [to lawmakers] that we hear about... will always be given close scrutiny in my office," Lehmberg said.

The new D.A. said she wants to work with lobbyists and others when possible and said her office has published some guidelines on corporate involvement in politics.

She also said, unrelated to all of that, that her office will have a full-time environmental prosecutor on board early next year and that she's been talking to folks at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about that. Her office has statewide jurisdiction on some of the issues regulated by that agency.

• Secret ballots are legal in races for House Speaker, according to Democrats reacting to a newspaper quote from the Speaker's office.

Alexis DeLee, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Tom Craddick, was quoted in the San Antonio Express-News saying, "The Texas Constitution requires a record vote to be open if requested by three members on any question. The House could close the ballot, but it will have to be open if requested by three members."

But such ballots were ruled constitutional when the issue arose two years ago, and the Texas Supreme Court gave them a green light just a few years ago when the Senate was electing a presiding officer to replace Rick Perry, who left that gig to become Guv when George W. Bush moved to Washington, D.C.

Secretary of State Roger Williams — presiding over the House two years ago — turned back a challenge to secret ballots, citing House history and practice and the court ruling. That's recounted in a memo to Democratic colleagues from Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, who ends with a towel snap: "So the next time you hear someone in Craddick's office say that the House can't use a secret ballot, you can tell them they're flat wrong."

• Brian Walker, the Republican who lost by 102 votes to Rep. Chuck Hopson, D-Jacksonville, wants a recount. He says that "credible reports" indicate some ballots in that HD-11 race were improperly rejected.

• And the Legislative Budget Board adopted a fairly conservative limit on budget growth that will hold increases in spending on undedicated state tax revenue to 9.14 percent, or about $6.7 billion. The LBB chose from five estimates of how the state economy will grow over the next biennium, ranging from a low of 7.74 percent to a high of 14.82 percent. And the limit they've chosen can be manipulated some. The comptroller's revenue estimate isn't out, and the numbers there set the actual numbers on the dollar limit. And any emergency appropriations that spend money in the current budget — that's spending that happens before next September — will raise the base amount. Raise the base, and you raise the limit.