All children under 18 riding in a car must be buckled up in a seat belt even when in the back seat; texting while driving will no longer be allowed; and more than 200 traffic fines will increase under three of the approximately 144 state laws that took effect Thursday, the first day of 2011 fiscal year.

Nearly three-fourths of the 196 bills approved by the 2010 legislature had a July 1 enactment date. Here's a closer look at some of the changes.

Seat-belt requirement: The law now requires all children under 18 to wear a seat belt or safety seat in a motor vehicle, even when in the back seat. The legislation didn't survive on its own but saw final passage as part of the transportation budget bill. Responsibility is placed on the violator rather than the driver if the person is 14 or older.

Ban on texting while driving: Iowa joins 28 other states with a ban on texting while driving. Adult drivers are restricted from reading, writing, and sending text messages. Teens with an instruction permit, restricted license, or intermediate license are banned from all use of cell phones and other electronic devices while driving. The bill includes exceptions for global positioning systems and for trucking and transit companies that use digital dispatch systems, as well as for public-safety and health-care professionals. The law took effect Thursday but allows a one-year education period during which violators will be given warnings. After that, violators will be guilty of a simple misdemeanor and could be fined $30. Penalties are harsher if an accident occurs and causes serious injury or death.

To many Illinois-politics insiders, one of the more surprising aspects of this Rod Blagojevich saga is not that the former governor was arrested. Most of them knew for years that he was heading for big trouble.

The late Chris Kelly's alleged misdeeds as one of Blagojevich's top fundraisers didn't stir all that much surprise. He was a high-pressure fundraiser who wouldn't take "no" for an answer. The conviction of wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko also wasn't that far from expectations. The man was obviously up to his eyeballs in corruption.

But the name of the fourth person who prosecutors say was in on the alleged schemes to skim as much money as possible during the Blagojevich era has taken quite a few insiders aback.

Back in 2003, Rod Blagojevich's former congressional chief of staff Dave Stricklin was asked by Chicago magazine to recall an example of his former boss' "goal-oriented approach to his congressional work."

"Having X amount of dollars raised by X date," was Stricklin's response.

The U.S. attorney's office has now posted several audio recordings online related to Lon Monk's testimony against Rod Blagojevich. I listened to them all last week, some of them twice, and it was beyond obvious that nothing changed for Blagojevich from the time he was a congressman right up until he was arrested.

Democracy breeds gullibility. Lord Bryce observed in 1921, "State action became less distrusted the more the State itself was seen to be passing under popular control." The rise of democracy made it much easier for politicians to convince people that government posed no threat, because they automatically controlled its actions. The result is that the brakes on government power become weakest at the exact time that politicians are most dangerous.

Blind trust becomes a substitute for informed consent. But mass trust in government compounds the political damage brought about by pervasive ignorance.

The bias in favor of trusting government brings out democracy's worst tendencies. The normal defenses that people would have against alien authority are undermined by a chorus of politicians and government officials continually reminding people that government is themselves, and they cannot distrust the government without distrusting themselves.