The state Legislature essentially wraps up business on Wednesday, leaving some important issues unresolved this year. So there are two ways to look at how Beacon Hill performed in 2015: Either lawmakers have set the groundwork for a very busy 2016 — or they've stalled on a lot of issues they'd rather not vote on at the moment.

Bills that once looked ready to score are now struggling to reach the goal line. Important proposals on things like bridging the wage gap, ride-hailing services, clean energy, genetically modified food, and much more are in time out until next year.

In fact, when you discount the dozens of routine and local bills they've dealt with, the Legislature's only put about 16 pieces of substantive policy on Gov. Charlie Baker's desk this year.

Much of the Legislature's work got sidelined as a result of in-fighting between the two chambers. The Senate tried — unsuccessfully — to rewrite the rules to give them equal footing with the House over what bills move forward. Their failure didn't stop the Senate from passing their own versions many measures, but without the House in sync, bills simply aren't getting to the governor’s desk.

"I think a lot of the bills have been impacted by some of the hold-up — right now our issue as well," transgender rights organizer Mason Dunn told WGBH News at a rally outside the State house Monday in the waning days of the 2015 session. "But there are many other major issues in the State house who are being held up."

Dunn is now preparing to regroup and begin an effort to lobby the Legislature next year on a public accommodations bill.

"I would be disappointed personally as a transgender person, yes, to not see the legislature move on this this season or even this session," Dunn said.

Another factor for the slowdown: Baker's reluctance to push lawmakers with an urgent agenda of his own. After first demanding a bill to fight opiate addiction by Thanksgiving, Baker didn't even file his own bill until a month ago. That didn't leave the Legislature time to process Baker's very controversial proposal.

Lawmakers did accomplish some of their most important work earlier in the year, and did it in short order. They passed seismic reforms to the MBTA within the context of a deficit correcting budget bill, expanded the popular Earned Income Tax Credit program; allowed Baker to offer early retirement to thousands of state employees and pried open decades of clenched opposition to privatizing some services.

But since July, the pace of lawmaking has slowed to a crawl.

Now, in the eleventh hour, House Speaker Robert DeLeo has narrowed his expectations. The House is expected to pass bills on solar energy and reforms to public records, but there's really no time to come to agreement with the Senate until next year. Senate President Stan Rosenberg says the Legislature is set up to make the second half of the two-year sessions where the action is - so he says you can't judge their productivity on just one year.

DeLeo says he's satisfied with what they've done so far, but admits that lawmakers will have to hit the ground running in 2016.

"We'll get them done and get them on the governor's desk," DeLeo told reporters Monday.