A Kankakee County judge ruled Wednesday that lawmakers overreached their constitutional authority in passing a measure to abolish cash bail in Illinois, while other provisions in the wide-ranging SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform were not affected by the ruling.

The ruling by Judge Thomas W. Cunnington leaves the impending cash bail reform in limbo in at least 64 of Illinois’ 102 counties that had joined the consolidated lawsuit ahead of the reform’s scheduled Jan. 1 implementation.

In Illinois, many new laws take effect in 2023.

For most people who work a minimum wage job, the new year will bring a pay raise to $13 per hour, a $1 increase over the current wage. That’s the result of a law Gov. JB Pritzker signed in 2019, his first major legislative victory after being sworn into office. The law will eventually raise the wage to $15 an hour on Jan. 1, 2025.

Debate around the proposed end of cash bail in Illinois on Jan. 1 dominated the political discourse during this fall’s political races and is now the subject of a court battle, but it’s just one of about 200 laws scheduled to take effect in the new year.

From a pay bump for low-wage workers and a tax hike at the gas pump to a new official state snake and rock, here’s a look at what kicks in as the calendar turns to 2023.

A host of new laws go into effect in 2023 that will affect education in Illinois.

In the wake of school shootings across the country, there are measures to address trauma. One law mandates school board members to receive training on trauma-informed practices.

Come Sunday, judges in Chicago and most other parts of the metro area will stop setting cash bail for people accused of crimes, with the decision to jail people ahead of trial depending solely on whether the judge deems them a public threat or flight risk.

For Illinois’ homeless populations and those that serve them, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a crisis – the volunteer, mostly faith-based shelters that had long been the backbone of the state’s emergency housing system were closing their doors.

But with the crisis – and a sudden influx of temporary federal, state and philanthropic funding – came an opportunity to move away from an already-stressed emergency housing system to what advocates say is a more dignified and effective one.

This past summer, a city of Chicago employee who works on the airfield at O’Hare Airport drove a vehicle into what’s called a “runway safety area” — and proceeded to do something quite unsafe.