(Among hard-fought measures that didn’t make the cut: expanded leave for new parents, a repeal of the so-called tampon tax and the abolition of the death penalty, which was defeated at the ballot box).

Some of the new laws:

• No more Instagram updates behind the wheel.

It’s already illegal to hold a phone and talk or text while driving. Starting Jan. 1, motorists cannot hold their phone for any reason. Hands-free functions will still be allowed.

• A minimum-wage bump.

California’s minimum wage will rise to $10.50 an hour, up from $10. Yearly increases under the new law will bring the wage to $15 an hour by 2022. All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia now have minimum wages above the federal base of $7.25 per hour.

• Tougher sentencing after the Brock Turner case.

Anger over the six-month jail sentence for Mr. Turner, the Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman, led the state to make a sexual-assault conviction ineligible for probation. Other measures removed a statute of limitations on rape, and broadened the legal definition of the word to include “all forms of nonconsensual sexual assault.”

• Stricter gun control.

New measures were passed in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, then voters approved more on the Nov. 8 ballot. Among them: the expansion of an assault weapons ban, first-in-the-nation background checks on ammunition purchases, and a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.