A Dogma Whistle from Kavanaugh?

I perked up at bit last night during Brett Kavanaugh’s remarks at the White House when he said, “I am part of the vibrant Catholic community in DC.” This may have been a deliberate shout out to the social conservatives who are disappointed that the nomination didn’t go to Amy Coney Barrett, whom Sen. Dianne Feinstein slurred with her infamous comment that “The dogma lives loudly with in you.”

But maybe this comment was also Feinstein bait? In any case, we can expect Feinstein to reprise her role as an inquisitor in the Judiciary Committee hearings for Kavanaugh for the simple reason that she faces a serious challenge from her left in the November election from State Senator Kevin de Leon, who finished second in California’s “jungle primary” last month. De Leon is young and charismatic, and enjoys the enthusiastic support of the Bernie Bros and other surging leftist parts of the Democratic coalition in California. Feinstein, at age 85, is hardly a fresh face for Democrats, and has long been the moderate California Democrat in the Senate. It is not at all unthinkable that de Leon could beat her, so she will be wanting to shore up her left flank this fall. Kavanaugh’s invocation of his Catholic ties might be a way of saying, “Bring it on!” Kavanaugh’s dogma won’t get run over by Feinstein’s bad karma.

Meanwhile, who is de Leon? Good question. The Sacramento Bee looked into his background back in 2014, with some curious results:

The untold story of how Kevin Leon became Kevin de León

By Christopher Cadelago

The name on his birth certificate isn’t Kevin de León.

That’s how the Los Angeles Democrat identified himself more than two years ago when he was sworn in as the 47th president pro tem of the California Senate, the first Latino to hold the position in more than a century. On his birth certificate and voter rolls, however, the 50-year-old politician is Kevin Alexander Leon.

While he’s spent more than a decade climbing the ranks of California politics, rising to become state government’s second-most influential elected official, how KAL became KDL, as he’s known at the Capitol, is a tale he’s resisted telling the public. When he discussed his upbringing, he offered a simple account of growing up with a single mom who came to the U.S. from Mexico. . .

Adding two letters “was never a stretch,” de León said, because ‘de’ means ‘of’ in Spanish. Though he’s used the name – with an accent – for the last 30 years, de León never changed it on legal documents.“Everything that I sign is ‘de León.’ (It) always will be de León,” he said.

Sounds like we have another Gary Hartpence on our hands.

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