Premise: I don't want to jump in. I may have been misled by all the news reports about this matter, because the law that was proposed in Texas that had the support of the Byrd family and a whole lot of people in Texas did, in fact, die in committee. There may be some other statute that was already on the books, but certainly the advocates of the hate crimes law felt that a tough new law was needed.
Hypothesis: The Byrd family supported this bill.