To use SSL certs with SQLAlchemy and MySQLdb, use the following python code:
db_connect_string='mysql://<user>:<pswd>@<db server>:3306/<database>'
ssl_args = {'ssl': {'cert':'/path/to/client-cert',
'key':'/path/to/client-key',
'ca':'/path/to/ca-cert'}}
create_engine(db_connect_string, connect_args=ssl_args)