WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, getting his first opportunity to question a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, said Wednesday night he doubted Judge Brett Kavanaugh would side with minorities who have been the victim of discrimination.

"We have a long way to go," Booker, D-N.J., told Kavanaugh. "We have work to do, black folks and white folks honoring the history of a united America fighting to make us more just. The Supreme Court has a vital role in that.

"Nothing you say gives me comfort, should you get on the Supreme Court, that you will drive forward and see we have that work to do."

Kavanaugh refused on numerous occasions to say whether he believed the effort to improve opportunities for long-disadvantaged minorities, such as taking race into account in college admissions, were a "compelling government interest," or, as he once said in an email, was a "naked racial set-aside."

Instead, Kavanaugh cited Supreme Court rulings that allowed diversity to be considered a factor.

"I know what the law is now," Booker responded at one point. "I want to know what the law is going to be when you get on the court and have the ability to change those precedents."

Booker honed in on racial equality issues, concerned that Kavanaugh would join with the other conservatives on the court to roll back efforts to help minorities who long have been victims of discrimination.

He also questioned Kavanaugh's support of voter-identification laws. Such laws supposedly are designed to curb in-person voter fraud, which studies have shown is virtually non-existent but do have the effect of hindering traditionally Democratic constituencies such as minority and poor voters from casting ballots.

The Supreme Court's Republican-appointed majority already gutted the Voting Rights Act, which had passed the Senate, 98-0, and the House, 390-33, leading to a spate of voting restrictions in Republican-controlled states.

"We are at a time where states are enacting these laws all over our country, designed to disenfranchise voters," Booker said. "Your answers don't provide me comfort, as a justice of our nation's highest court, that you will fairly take into account the barriers that continue to disenfranchise minority voters."

Republicans enacted a voter-ID law in North Carolina, which Trump embraced, that the federal courts threw out because it targeted blacks "with almost surgical precision."

South Carolina's law required a pastor and veteran to spend $36 in order to get the necessary papers for the required voter ID. In the days of the now-outlawed poll tax, he would have had to pay $1 to vote, the equivalent of $30 today, Booker said.

"This isn't that much different," he said.

Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion upholding that law. He said the decision took into account that "racism still exists" and "the long march for racial equality is not over."

He said the court delayed the effective date of the law in order to see how it would work, and created a "reasonable impediment" that would allow those without voter IDs to cast ballots.

Kavanaugh also discussed his efforts to attract minority law clerks, both for his own chambers and for other judges.

"I hope it gives you confidence that I've at least done my best to understand the real world and tried through my actual decisions in the real world to apply the law fairly, and through my other role as a judge in hiring law clerks to be very proactive in trying to advance the quality for African Americans," he said.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.