---
type: "Bill"
title: "An Act establishing a charter for the city of Somerville"
description: "Substituted by the House, on motion of Mr. Walsh of Peabody, for a bill with the same title (House, No. 4264) [Local Approval Received]. August 21, 2025."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ma"
legislature: "Massachusetts General Court"
session: "194th"
identifier: "H 4445"
citation: "Massachusetts H 4445 (194th)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Thomas P. Walsh"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 12
vote_count: 0
first_action: "2025-08-21"
last_action: "2025-09-19"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/74c7e337-2d2d-4511-b2a7-2121297a9ce3"
source_url: "https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4445"
source_hash: "7b0109f2290ec2df9c302855b2b018ba07e5a933b5d394b18e1f1671e15d6e2f"
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 4445 (194th) — An Act establishing a charter for the city of Somerville

Substituted by the House, on motion of Mr. Walsh of Peabody, for a bill with the same title (House, No. 4264) [Local Approval Received]. August 21, 2025.

## 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/194/H4445.pdf)

## Sponsors

- Thomas P. Walsh — primary (person)
- Christine P. Barber — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2025-08-21** Substituted for H4264
- **2025-08-21** Passed to be engrossed `passage`
- **2025-08-25** Read, rules suspended, read second and ordered to a third reading `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2025-09-11** Taken out of the Orders of the Day
- **2025-09-11** Read third `reading-3`
- **2025-09-11** Amended (Jehlen) by striking out all after the enacting clause and inserting in place thereof the text of S2604 `amendment-passage`
- **2025-09-11** Passed to be engrossed `passage`
- **2025-09-11** Referred to the committee on Bills in the Third Reading `referral-committee`
- **2025-09-11** House concurred in the Senate amendment
- **2025-09-11** Enacted `passage`
- **2025-09-11** Enacted and laid before the Governor `passage`
- **2025-09-19** Signed by the Governor, Chapter 31 of the Acts of 2025 `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/74c7e337-2d2d-4511-b2a7-2121297a9ce3`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Massachusetts legislature records).