Two thousand guests have been invited to help celebrate Wednesday’s swearing-in of the first Latino to head the California Senate in more than a century.

Democratic Sen. Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles is breaking with tradition to hold his ceremony at Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Previous ceremonies took place at the state Capitol and have been relatively low-key, according to the California State Library’s research bureau. The invitation lists the event as the “Inauguration of Kevin de Leon,” using language usually reserved for presidents and governors.

The California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation, which receives donations from special interests seeking influence in the Legislature, is picking up the estimated $50,000 tab.

About 200 officeholders also have been invited to witness his swearing-in as Senate president pro tempore.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/California-leader-preps-for-expensive-swearing-in-5823423.php

De Leon Bio:

Now, as the Los Angeles Democrat prepares to take over Wednesday as leader of the state Senate, De León must prove he can balance his political agenda with the demands of the new post: shepherding colleagues with disparate
political views onto common ground.

The job of Senate president pro tem requires the former activist to mesh with the patriarchal tendencies of Gov. Jerry Brown, the understated, iron-ore resolve of Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and a Republican caucus that, although a minority, still has some bite.

De León also has the burden of taking over a legislative body that in the last two years has seen felony charges against three senators, one of whom has been convicted.

De León will be sworn in at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, becoming the first Latino to lead the Senate since 1883, when Reginaldo del Valle held the post.

“I’ve been thinking a lot as I enter a new phase of my life and a new leadership that provides opportunities to help improve the human condition,” De León, 47, said in his fifth-floor Sacramento office overlooking Capitol Park. “So I want to come in and attempt to give every kid a fair shot at the California dream.”

Raised in poverty by a single mother from Mexico, De León — single with a daughter in college — has carried his activist agenda through eight years in the Legislature. He has championed affirmative action programs, and salvaged a bill providing driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally.

At an event last week sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California, De León voiced support for expanding state healthcare benefits to such immigrants. But he added a major caveat: finding an acceptable way to pay for it — pragmatism more indicative of a seasoned politician than a young ideologue.

De León’s childhood included two-hour bus rides with his mother each day to wealthy San Diego neighborhoods where she cleaned houses. He was carted to the free clinic or across the border to Tijuana if he needed medical care.
Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose) said his colleague once drove him to where he lived as a child in a small basement accessed from an alley in Logan Heights.

“He didn’t live in the house. He lived under the house. It was pretty stark poverty,” Beall said.

De León escaped the streets in part by joining a boxing program at the Barrio Station youth center with his childhood friend Fabian Nuñez, who would go on to become state Assembly speaker.

“They were decent kids,” recalled Rachael Ortiz, who has worked at the center for 44 years and is now its executive director. “They were two real serious young men. Headstrong. They grew up in the middle of escalating gang violence, but they didn’t identify with the gangs.”

De León graduated from San Diego High School and attended UC Santa Barbara for two years before poor grades cost him his financial aid, forcing him to leave school.

Too embarrassed to go home, De León started teaching civics and English for the One-Stop Immigration and Education Center in Santa Barbara.

“I immediately noticed his leadership skills,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, who headed the center at the time and is now president of Vamos Unidos USA. “He was a hands-on guy who did what needed to get done.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-deleon-20141015-story.html#page=1