---
type: "Bill"
title: "An Act to address challenges faced by municipalities and state authorities resulting from COVID-19"
description: "An Act to address challenges faced by municipalities and state authorities resulting from COVID-19"
jurisdiction: "us/states/ma"
legislature: "Massachusetts General Court"
session: "191st"
identifier: "H 4598"
citation: "Massachusetts H 4598 (191st)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["House Committee on Ways and Means"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 19
vote_count: 0
first_action: "2020-03-27"
last_action: "2020-04-03"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/47721424-ca5e-47a7-a6e3-c42e085e3a5b"
source_url: "https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H4598"
source_hash: "e78ce29e0feafef6a9904028a1d02a78c3d956bf21cbf93afe6fee4a3fca9938"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ma"]
---

# Massachusetts H 4598 (191st) — An Act to address challenges faced by municipalities and state authorities resulting from COVID-19

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/H4598.pdf)

## Sponsors

- House Committee on Ways and Means — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2020-03-27** Reported from the committee on House Ways and Means
- **2020-03-27** Reported on a part of H4586
- **2020-03-27** Read, rules suspended, read second, ordered to a third reading, rules suspended, read third and passed to be engrossed `reading-2, reading-3, reading-1`
- **2020-03-30** Read, rules suspended, read second `reading-2, reading-1`
- **2020-03-30** Amended (Rodrigues) by striking out all after the enacting clause and inserting in place thereof the text of S2619 `amendment-passage`
- **2020-03-30** Ordered to a third reading
- **2020-03-30** Read third and passed to be engrossed `reading-3`
- **2020-03-30** Referred to the committee on Bills in the Third Reading `referral-committee`
- **2020-03-30** House concurred in the Senate amendment with a further amendment, striking all after the enacting clause and inserting in place thereof the text of House document numbered 4612
- **2020-04-01** Senate concurred in the further House amendment with a still further amendment, see S2622
- **2020-04-02** Referred to the committee on Bills in the Third Reading `referral-committee`
- **2020-04-02** House concurred in the Senate amendment with a still, still further amendment, striking all after the enacting clause and inserting in place thereof the text of House document numbered 4617
- **2020-04-02** Rules suspended
- **2020-04-02** Senate concurred in the still still further House amendment
- **2020-04-02** Emergency preamble adopted
- **2020-04-02** Emergency preamble adopted
- **2020-04-02** Enacted `passage`
- **2020-04-02** Enacted and laid before the Governor `passage`
- **2020-04-03** Signed by the Governor, Chapter 53 of the Acts of 2020 `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/47721424-ca5e-47a7-a6e3-c42e085e3a5b`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Massachusetts legislature records).