AB1537 changes California’s rules for peace officers’ secondary employment. It authorizes off‑duty officers to work as private security or for public entities while wearing their uniforms and — in defined circumstances — exercising peace‑officer powers concurrently; it also prohibits secondary work that assists immigration enforcement and makes related records public.
The bill matters because it rearranges risk and oversight: it assigns liability differently depending on whether the secondary employer is a public or private entity, imposes local approval and indemnity requirements for private gigs, limits policing authority during labor disputes, and creates a reporting and decertification pathway tied to immigration‑enforcement work.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill permits peace officers to take casual or part‑time security jobs while off duty and to exercise peace‑officer powers in those roles when certain conditions are met; it imposes approval, uniform, and control requirements, allocates liability between employers, bans secondary work supporting immigration enforcement, and opens secondary‑employment records to public inspection.
Who It Affects
Municipal and county law enforcement agencies, off‑duty peace officers, private security firms and other secondary employers, local boards of supervisors and city councils (which must approve certain private gigs), labor organizations involved in strikes or pickets, and immigration‑enforcement contractors.
Why It Matters
The measure changes who bears civil and criminal risk for off‑duty conduct, restores earlier judicial interpretations about officers acting in private security roles, and creates new transparency and decertification tools that agencies and officers must incorporate into their policies and contracts.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
AB1537 rewrites Section 70 to modernize how California treats off‑duty peace officers who take secondary employment as security guards or patrolmen. It says officers may accept casual or part‑time security work while off duty and, under specified conditions, wear their police uniforms and exercise peace‑officer powers concurrently with that private or public security role.
The bill is written to reverse two California Supreme Court decisions (People v. Corey and Cervantez) and “reinstate prior judicial interpretations” that supported criminal sanctions for assaulting officers acting in such capacities.
The bill draws a clear line between public‑entity secondary employers and private employers. When an officer works for a public entity while off duty, the secondary employer—i.e., that public entity—must bear any civil and criminal liability arising from the officer’s secondary job.
When the secondary employer is a private firm, the bill requires local board or council approval, principal‑employer approval of uniforms and equipment, and that the principal employer’s rules still govern the officer; it also requires the principal employer to secure an indemnity from the private employer and, in a twist, makes the principal employer bear civil and criminal liability arising from those private gigs.AB1537 also curtails the exercise of police powers in labor disputes: officers employed by private security firms cannot use their police powers during strikes, lockouts, picketing, or other physical labor demonstrations at the dispute site. The bill removes approval of such private secondary employment from collective‑bargaining processes, requires written reasons if an agency denies permission for other off‑duty employment, mandates reporting to an officer’s employing agency of offers to assist with immigration enforcement, and makes all records related to secondary employment public under the California Public Records Act.
Finally, the bill declares working for the Department of Homeland Security or entities that assist immigration enforcement as forbidden secondary employment, makes violations grounds for decertification, and requires officers to report any such offers.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill explicitly authorizes off‑duty peace officers to wear their police uniforms and exercise peace‑officer powers while working casual or part‑time as security guards for public entities, and it assigns liability from that work to the secondary (public) employer.
For private‑sector security work, the bill requires approval from the county board of supervisors or city council (or their designees), principal‑employer sign‑off on uniforms/equipment, and an indemnity agreement from the private employer; paradoxically, the principal employer bears civil and criminal liability for such private gigs.
The bill bars off‑duty officers from exercising police powers when guarding private employers during strikes, lockouts, picketing, or other physical labor demonstrations at the site of the dispute and prevents approval of those gigs from being subject to collective bargaining.
AB1537 makes any secondary employment that assists or engages in immigration enforcement (including DHS contractors) categorically prohibited; refusal to comply can lead to decertification under the Peace Officer Standards and Training regime and officers must report offers to their employing agency.
All records related to peace officers’ secondary employment are public records under the California Public Records Act, creating a new transparency requirement for agencies and employers.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Baseline bribery and narrow exception for deputy registrars
Subdivisions (a) and (b) keep the longstanding misdemeanor prohibition on officers accepting unauthorized emoluments for official acts and preserve a narrow, existing exception that allows deputy registrars of voters to be paid by political actors when authorized by local ordinance. These are background provisions that remain the statutory starting point for the rest of Section 70.
Public‑entity secondary employment: authorization and liability shift
This subdivision authorizes officers to work casual or part‑time for a public entity while off duty, wear their police uniform, and exercise peace‑officer powers concurrently, provided they follow reasonable rules of their principal agency. Critically, the bill places any civil or criminal liability arising from that secondary employment on the public (secondary) employer—meaning the entity hiring the officer for the off‑duty work, not the officer’s regular law enforcement agency. The subdivision also states legislative intent to overturn People v. Corey and Cervantez to restore prior judicial readings that supported criminal protections for officers acting in these secondary roles.
Private‑employer security work: approvals, exclusions, and indemnity
For private employers, the bill permits similar off‑duty security work but layers in procedural checks: the county board of supervisors or city council with jurisdiction (or a designee) must approve the officer’s secondary private employment; the principal employer must approve uniforms and equipment; and the officer remains subject to their agency’s rules. The bill forbids exercising police powers at labor‑dispute sites and removes approval of such secondary employment from the collective‑bargaining table. Unusually, the bill assigns civil and criminal liability arising from private secondary employment back to the officer’s principal employer while obligating that principal employer to require an indemnity from the private employer as a condition of approval.
Other off‑duty employment and denial process
This subdivision preserves an officer’s right to other kinds of off‑duty work unless an employing agency lawfully limits it through written regulations, agency policy, or an agreement with a recognized employee organization. If an agency denies permission for other employment, it must provide written reasons at the time of denial—creating procedural transparency and a record for disputes over off‑duty work permissions.
Ban on secondary employment tied to immigration enforcement and reporting duties
The bill bans officers from engaging in secondary employment for the Department of Homeland Security or any entity that ‘assists with or engages in immigration enforcement’ (as defined in Gov. Code §7284.4). Violating the ban is characterized as an act of dishonesty for purposes of Section 832.7 and becomes grounds for decertification under the POST statutes. Officers must report offers or requests for such secondary employment to their employing agency, establishing both a compliance and intelligence channel for agencies.
Public disclosure of secondary‑employment records
All records related to peace officers’ secondary employment are made subject to the California Public Records Act. That provision removes confidentiality protections that agencies or employers might previously assert, obligating agencies to prepare for public requests, redaction issues, and potential privacy challenges when releasing contracts, approval documents, indemnities, and related correspondence.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Justice across all five countries.
Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Public entities and special districts that hire off‑duty officers: gain access to uniformed, authorized officers who can exercise police powers while working for the entity, with the bill directing liability for public‑entity secondary gigs to the secondary employer.
- Private security firms that can hire off‑duty officers (subject to local approval): stand to attract credentialed officers for contracts, potentially improving their marketability for guarded sites not involving labor disputes.
- Members of the public and transparency advocates: benefit from the CPRA classification of secondary‑employment records, which increases oversight of who officers work for when off duty and what agreements govern that work.
Who Bears the Cost
- Principal employing agencies (city/county law enforcement): bear civil and criminal liability when their officers perform private‑sector secondary work, must process approvals, secure indemnities, and manage reporting obligations—raising fiscal and administrative exposure.
- Secondary employers (private firms): must obtain local approvals, accept uniform/equipment conditions, and (in practice) provide indemnities; they also face reputational scrutiny because related records are public.
- Peace officers themselves: gain earning opportunities but face heightened career risk—working with or accepting offers to assist immigration enforcement can trigger decertification, and public disclosure of secondary gigs increases reputational exposure.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is this: the bill seeks to expand officers’ ability to earn off‑duty income and provide communities with uniformed security while simultaneously imposing transparency, prohibitions, and liability rules intended to protect public interests—yet those protections shift financial and political risk among different employers and invite operational complexity. In short, AB1537 tries to enable dual roles for officers while also constraining the very powers and relationships that make those roles contentious, forcing trade‑offs between flexibility, accountability, and cost allocation.
AB1537 packs multiple, sometimes conflicting, policy choices into a single section. The bill both authorizes concurrent policing powers and reallocates liability in opposite directions depending on whether the secondary employer is public or private.
That asymmetry will force agencies to renegotiate approval processes and contract terms: principal employers suddenly exposed to liability for private gigs will demand robust indemnities from private firms, complicating smaller employers’ access to off‑duty officers and raising questions about insurance and claims handling.
Operationally, the requirement that county boards or city councils approve private secondary employment imports political actors into routine personnel decisions and may slow or politicize approvals. Making secondary‑employment records public improves transparency but triggers predictable privacy and safety tensions—agencies will need to decide what to redact (home addresses, personnel records) and how to respond to frequent CPRA requests.
The ban on exercising police powers at labor‑dispute sites addresses one public‑policy worry but creates edge cases (e.g., mixed‑use facilities, spontaneous demonstrations) where officers and employers will need clear guidance. Finally, the decertification pathway tied to immigration‑related secondary employment raises evidentiary and jurisdictional questions: agencies will have to define what “assists with or engages in immigration enforcement” means in practice and how to investigate and prove disallowed conduct without creating a backdoor to arbitrary disciplinary action.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.