About Rough & Tumble

For more than 30 years — day in, day out — he’s chronicled California. One paragraph at a time -- The Sacramento-based Rough & Tumble may be California’s longest-running aggregator of politics and policy. Mark Z. Barabak in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 4/6/26

Rough & Tumble is a snapshot of California public policy and politics based on the reporting from publications covering the largest and most diverse population in America.

The site is produced by Emmy award winning reporter Jack Kavanagh with thirty years of experience reporting on public policy and politics on both coasts.

Bio info:

Jack Kavanagh has been a political reporter for thirty years and along the way has earned 2 Emmy awards plus a PBS Telly award. In California, Kavanagh was a political reporter for KOVR-TV in Sacramento.

He has covered national political conventions, the start of the first Gulf War from Washington, D.C., and the dedication of the Reagan Presidential library in Simi Valley. He is a native of Providence, Rhode Island and began his career at WJAR-TV where in 1978, his around the clock reporting from the Rhode Island state capitol help guide Southern New England viewers through a paralyzing five day blizzard.

Jack and his wife Irene live in Sacramento.