This is an opinion column.

Labels stink. Worse, really.

So, let’s call this a eulogy for one disparaging label: Failure.

Or near eulogy because it deserves to be wielded one last time–at the 2023 legislative session.

It was a failure if for no other reason than for lawmakers to feel the disparaging stain of a label they’ve thrust upon educators, students, and parents at struggling, typically high-poverty schools across the state for a decade.

Thrust upon them intentionally in the 2013 Alabama Accountability Act crafted by then-Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston. Crafted to “humiliate schools” State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey damningly revealed back in April—”to cause frustration and problems in high-poverty communities so it can be used as an excuse to fund scholarships.”

That shameful label ignored the “remarkable growth” at many schools, Mackey added. It ignored teachers and students striving to do more with less, to rise amid the economic storms that hover above low-income communities. It unfairly tainted schools earning “C’s’” on the report card because their test scores ranked in the bottom 6% of all schools.

Hey, Marsh, that’s your legacy.

Thankfully, the label was expunged during this session—changed to “priority”, as those schools should be for anyone committed to seeing all students excel to their capacity. Which is far from happening in Alabama.

Sadly, it may take another decade to undo the damage the label has wrought.

So, excuse me for keeping the “failing” label alive for one last gasp before the plug is pulled. A final heave at lawmakers who failed to pass legislation on gun violence—not a smidgen after the tragic mass killing at a Sweet 16 party in Dadeville in April. And they uttered nary a word about much-needed Medicaid expansion.

They didn’t even consider actions that would undoubtedly save lives, help working families afford healthcare, and support struggling hospitals and medical centers in desperate, rural, poverty-entrenched areas across the state. In doing (or not doing) so, they failed us all.

Oh, I hear the whining. But we did so much good. Indeed lawmakers put a few dollars in our pockets in lowering the grocery tax, and providing a state income tax rebate. They showed uncommon empathy in limiting driver’s license suspensions for unpaid fees and common sense in passing a law further criminalizing street racing, while allowing petty, nebulous bills on “divisive concepts”, expanding the ban on discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools, criminalizing aiding voters with absentee ballots, and banning public drag shows in presence of minors (Don’t like ‘em? Don’t take your kids), allowing all of them to die.

So, pencil a “B-” on the session’s report card. But like those struggling yet progressing schools lawmakers still deemed “failing” each year, they must also wear that label, too.

Because they stubbornly refused, yet again, to pass a “red flag” law. Because they refused to join the 19 other states and D.C. that permit a state court to temporarily take a firearm from someone deemed by law enforcement and mental health professionals to be a danger to themselves or others. Refused to protect, especially, someone living in the same household or in a domestic relationship with the gun owner.

There was hope, real hope, back in April, amid Dadeville’s shocking, grieving aftermath. Even knowing our Republicans, with a super-majority in the House and Senate, are rock-headed stubborn over anything that whiffs of reform. Even reform that may save a life. (Our Republicans are more concerned with saving the gun lobby.)

State Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove) repeatedly pushed for passage of her Gun Violence Protective Order Act as a House member—to no avail, of course. Days after the Dadeville tragedy she said a Republican senate colleague reached out to discuss being a co-sponsor on another version of the bill.

Senate Bill 123 rested with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Where it died.

“I never heard from anyone on the other side of the aisle,” Coleman shared on Tuesday, the session’s last day. “There’s a strong gun lobby in the state of Alabama. For something like this to pass, you got to have members with the political courage to stand up to the NRA and to some of the Alabama-based gun rights organizations and say, ‘This is not about your right to keep your gun, this is about trying to make sure we protect lives.’

“It is very discouraging that we were unable to come together,” she said. “But I am not deterred.”

It is beyond discouraging—and baffling—that Republican lawmakers, led by our Republican-in-Chief, continue to be petulant and obstinate about Medicaid expansion, failing to discuss the needs of 304,000 working-class Alabamians or even create a commission to explore its viability.

Instead, our lawmakers would rather proudly remain one of only 12 states that haven’t expanded the program because, well, of their hardened hearts for all things Barack Obama.

“Democrats have been screaming about Medicaid expansion since the Obama administration (under which Medicaid expansion was created),” Coleman said. “This is about political courage. Some [Republican] constituents want to lump Medicaid expansion with the Affordable Care Act. Some of [their lawmakers] lack the political courage to say these are two separate things, to go out and educate their constituency about how this truly will help not only more than 300,000 people in the state of Alabama, but we’ll also be able to provide some of our hospitals with the resources they need to stay viable.

RELATED: Ivey’s legacy: Prisons or Medicaid? Her choice

“It’s an economic development issue,” Coleman added, “yet they lack the political courage to go out there and make a real case for why we need to expand Medicaid.”

Lack of courage in the face of vital, lifesaving needs—by any label, that’s failure.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

Are we becoming the land of the bully and home of the nasty?

Through faith, former Birmingham news anchor finds unlikely new season as an actor

United Methodist member recalls effort in 1970s to merge Black and white congregations

Instead of forcing kids to hear the ‘Star-Spanged Banner’, they should study it

Questioning parenting after youth violence is real, but does not absolve lawmaker inaction

I’m a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts: “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. My column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Stay tuned for my upcoming limited series podcast Panther: Blueprint for Black Power, co-hosted with Eunice Elliott. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach me at [email protected], follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj