Why now, brown cow?

The Senate has apologized for not banning lynching. I believe the argument at the time was that murder was illegal, and making a new crime for the motive of the murder wasn't going to change anything. Like the arguments used against Hate Crime legislation now. Now, I'm not accusing anti-Hate Crime legislation people of being like Southern Senators who wanted to deny civil rights. (I don't particularly believe such legislation will do any good, and like with the lynchings back then, you have to address the root of the alienation), but more I am rather curious why Republicans are supporting this apology now, since it contravenes their logic on Hate-Crime legislation.

One theory is that it's just trying to get the Senate some good news, after all the recent debacles. Current Senate approval ratings have fallen to 31%. Ewww.

I am very tempted, however, to think this is an attempt to blacken the filibuster. The recent compromise was quite possibly a fig-leaf, and we're gonna see a real filubster battle over the Supreme Court soon. Bringing up that the filibuster was most famously used to deny civil rights, is one cute (and cheap!) way of preparing the groundwork for another anti-filibuster battle.

[To be clear, I continue to think the filibuster was a bad idea then and now. Although it's quite possible that the message from looking at all the Senate munchkinning related to racial issues, was "Southern Senators are bad".]