[RelativeDelta]

They consider caste an ethnicity.

They likely shot it down because 'caste' carries a very different meaning in American parlance. It mostly relates to wealth and they absolutely DO want to discriminate on that basis.

[logicalmonster]

So I'm curious why this bill was being pushed if that discrimination is already banned then?

[rramadass]

It was primarily Hinduphobic agenda-driven by vested interests.

If you want to know the details you can read all my previous comments and follow the links from here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37692617

[RelativeDelta]

You'd have to ask the bill's authors to know for sure.

If I had to bet though it was a security thing. They want caste named explicitly because a good deal of Indian immigrants are dealing with it despite it supposedly being illegal.