Berman wrote about Kavanaugh and voting rights in Mother Jones a couple of days before the Times piece (perhaps inspiring the Times to commission the later piece), and in that one he provided this piquant detail:

Kavanaugh downplayed the racially charged origins of South Carolina’s voter ID law and its impact on voters of color. Members of the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus walked out of the Legislature when the bill was first considered. After the law passed, Ed Koziol, a Republican supporter of the law, wrote an email to the bill’s author, Rep. Alan Clemmons of Myrtle Beach, saying that if African Americans were offered a $100 award for obtaining voter ID, “you would see how fast they got voter ID cards with their picture. It would be like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon.”

“Amen, Ed,” Clemmons responded. “Thank you for your support of voter ID.”

Though Kavanaugh said he was “troubled” by that racist email, he wrote that “one legislator’s failure to immediately denounce those views in his responsive email, as he later testified he should have done—do not speak for the two Houses of the South Carolina Legislature, or the South Carolina Governor.”

Oh well as long as he was troubled.