The House is still full-steam ahead on attempting to pass President Joe Biden’s hard and soft infrastructure programs this week, possibly, now that they’ve overcome the logjam that was Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. The strategy for dealing with Sen. Joe Manchin, the other problem, seems to be passing them and daring him to ruin everything, a risky bet. 

The House Rules committee now has updated text (still subject to change) of the reconciliation bill for Build Back Better (BBB), the social and climate bill that could move out of House Rules and to the floor sometime in the next 72 hours. Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear Thursday morning that it will go to the floor along with the hard infrastructure bill (nicknamed BIF) negotiated and passed by a bipartisan Senate team. When that happens is still not clear. Pelosi told her caucus in a meeting before the press conference that the bills could be voted on Thursday night and Friday morning, but was less definitive when talking to reporters. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is officially suggesting votes on both could come as early as Thursday.

There are, however, still obstacles among House Democrats. One big issue still to work out is immigration; Pelosi made some news there, suggesting that the Senate needs to overrule the parliamentarian to get the best solution possible for undocumented immigrants. She and her colleagues are advocating for a registry system. “We would like to have registry in there, because we think it is the easiest, most efficient fair way to deal with people who are here so that they can work, and their families feel safe, and that they won’t be exploited,” she told reporters Thursday. “If the Senate [wants it], though, and I urge them—put it forth,” she said, “It would involve overruling the […] parliamentarian, perhaps, not getting bogged down in their rules. It’s up to to them, but if they want to do that, we want to do that.”

At this point, lawmakers have reduced the promised path to citizenship for the immigrant workforce to “parole” protections for undocumented immigrants who have been in the country since before 2011. It would allow them two five-year waivers to live and work in the United States. Pelosi’s preference, and the preference of the three Democratic House members who have been holding out their votes—Reps. Jesús García (Illinois), Lou Correa (California), and Adriano Espaillat (New York)—is to have the broader registry provision that would provide more certainty, creating a registry for immigrants who have been in the country since 2010 and allowing them to become permanent residents. It has already been presented to the parliamentarian, and rejected. As Pelosi reminded the Senate, there’s something they can do about that.

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The Senate remains uncertain on that, but the discussion is happening. A group of Senate Democrats has been pushing the House to put the maximum on immigration in their bill. “I do think it is important that the House include really all the pathway to citizenship […] It is important that we have that in there,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. Leaders Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin have so far demurred, with Durbin indicating that he’s not sure they wouldn’t lose Manchin that way. Schumer just said he hopes the parliamentarian “will see things in the way that we want them to.”

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey is also asking the House to go big. Just because the parliamentarian had rejected ideas, “that doesn’t mean the House can’t exert its will and express itself in terms of what it wants to see,” he said. “That’s probably why they are having options, too,” Menendez said. “And then, you know, you can always appeal the ruling of the chair.” It’s at least talked about as an option among Senate Democrats, which is a sign of some progress.

Back on the House side, the conservative crew, still trying to push for delays on BBB and an immediate vote on BIF (which is not happening), is also demanding they wait until the Congressional Budget Office has scored the bill before they’ll vote. The Joint Committee on Taxation released its analysis Thursday morning, finding the the bill would raise $1.476 trillion in revenue.

Another bit of positive economic justification for the legislation came from Moody’s Analytics Thursday morning. BBB would “strengthen long-term economic growth, the benefits of which would mostly accrue to lower- and middle/income Americans,” Moody’s analysts say. And answering one of Manchin’s regular excuses for not wanting to do it: “Concerns that the plan will ignite undesirably high inflation and an overheating economy are overdone.”

“The reconciliation package … meaningfully lifts economic growth and jobs and lowers unemployment,” the analysts conclude. “The economy performs best in the final scenario, in which both the bipartisan infrastructure deal and the reconciliation package become law.”