“参议员，什么是山羊竞技会?”
当你开始报道国会时，你不会想象自己在晚上11点就在神圣的会议厅外问一位美国参议员这类问题。但这就是参议员约翰·肯尼迪(John Kennedy)的方式。，描述了周四深夜整个参议院陷入瘫痪的情况，当时议员们试图就加快通过一项大规模两党基础设施协议的前进道路达成一致，但最终未能达成一致，该协议是乔·拜登总统的一个关键优先事项。
“这就像是一场动物的垃圾箱火灾，”肯尼迪说，在得知他的同事们尽管经过几个小时的争吵，仍未就一系列修正案达成一致意见，从而使两党基础设施法案在当晚获得通过后，他离开了会场。
啊，是的...有动物的垃圾箱着火了。这就是你喜欢听到的上腔描述。
平分秋色的参议院目前正按计划于周六就一项1.1万亿美元的两党基础设施协议进行关键的程序性投票，该协议将为道路、桥梁和水路等项目提供资金。这是一段漫长的旅程，其结论仍不清楚。
根据你所指的时间表，参议院在基础设施方面的工作已经持续了至少四个月。如果国会成功完成这项工作，这将是总统和帮助起草法案的立法者的巨大胜利。
在去那里的路上，有许多阶段的谈判和许多闭门会议，这意味着有无数个晚上与参议院记者同行坐在走廊里吃吃喝喝，试图在推特上智取对方，同时等待参议员们出现，哪怕是一点点现状。
首先，我们找出了一群关键的共和党人，他们制定了一个方案，但政府最终拒绝了，因为他们宣布共和党不愿意考虑他们认为合适的最高价值。
然后是BIF(当我打出这个首字母缩略词时，我畏缩了)。
BIF =两党基础设施框架。BIF在参议院地下室的隐蔽处被制作到深夜，在不同的时间里，有披萨、cannolis、葡萄酒、墨西哥玉米卷、墨西哥卷饼(以及许多其他我没能追踪到的食物)，它构成了参议院准备投票的法案的基础。
由俄亥俄州参议员罗布·波特曼和亚利桑那州参议员基尔斯顿·西内马领导的10名两党参议员花了数周时间精心设计了BIF，最终在6月份从白宫出来，宣布BIF已经转变为BID。没错:两党基础设施协议。
现在你会认为，一项已宣布的协议对参议院记者来说将是一个巨大的解脱。不再有闭门会议坐在外面走廊的地板上，对吗?错了。
将一项原则上的协议转化为可以在会议上投票的立法语言需要时间。对任何法案来说，它总是这样，在这种情况下，它花了几个星期，这意味着又有几个星期的迅猎兽，推特，坐在走廊的垃圾桶上，冲洗和重复。
如果众议院的进步人士认为该法案不适合他们，那么我们在参议院走廊的所有时间都可能被证明是无用的，这让整个情况更加复杂。这是一种明显的可能性，众议院议长南希·佩洛西(Nancy Pelosi)试图避免这种情况，她承诺在参议院向她提交第二份更大的预算决议之前，不会在众议院通过两党法案，该决议包括拜登的“人力基础设施”优先事项。
参议院预计将在未来几天内着手解决该预算法案，但首先，他们必须将这一法案踢过终点线。周四，程序性狂欢导致了延期。
未能就修正案达成一致意见意味着13个小时的瘫痪。但记者们不得不在附近徘徊，不确定参议员们是否最终会在凌晨就如何推进和通过该法案达成协议。
多数党党鞭约翰·图恩在晚上9点左右告诉我，他“没有感觉到。”但是在覆盖了这个法案几个月后，我不能冒险错过最后的通过。
所以我和其他电视和印刷媒体的同事一起坐在参议院，我们一直等到我们确定投票是否会发生。
与此同时，我们吃着冷剩的鸡块，坐在房间里，试图在一张草稿纸上记下每位参议员的名字;我们在推特上发布了一些礼物，只有另外六个非常熟悉这个程序性噩梦的人会觉得有趣;我们点了Chipotle，在国会大厦的台阶上吃了它，同时要求参议员在他们认为我们可能看到最终投票时进出。
他们大多数人都不知道。
但是参议员和我们一样，可以理解这需要很长时间。参议员们和我们一样，可以决定他们发现国会大厦后面华盛顿纪念碑的粉色和橙色天际线“值得拍照”，并停下来拍照。
他们和我们一样，能够意识到通过历史性的立法总是一个比我们想象的更耗时的过程。他们和我们一样，似乎愿意多等几天来完成这项工作。
The long and winding road to an infrastructure bill: Reporter's notebook
"Senator, what is a goat rodeo?"
When you start covering Congress, you don't imagine yourself asking a United States senator these types of questions just outside the hallowed chamber walls at 11 p.m. But that is how Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., described Thursday's late night Senate-wide paralysis when members tried, and ultimately failed, to agree on a path forward to expedite passage of a massive bipartisan infrastructure deal that is a key priority for President Joe Biden.
"It's like a dumpster fire with animals," Kennedy said, departing the floor upon learning his colleagues had not, despite hours of bickering, come to an agreement on a set of amendment votes that would have allowed the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass that night.
Ah yes... a dumpster fire with animals. That's how you love to hear the upper chamber described.
The evenly divided Senate is currently on track to take a key procedural vote on a $1.1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal that would fund things like roads, bridges and waterways, on Saturday. It's been a lengthy journey, the conclusion of which is still unclear.
Depending on whose timeline you're referencing, the Senate has now been working on infrastructure for at least four months. If Congress succeeds at getting this done, it will be a huge victory for the president and for the lawmakers who helped craft the bill.
On the way there, there have been many stages of negotiations and lots of closed-door meetings, which means there have been countless evenings spent sitting in the hallways with fellow Senate reporters eating Skittles and trying to outwit one another on Twitter while waiting for senators to emerge with even a morsel on the state-of-play.
First, we staked out a key group of Republicans who crafted a package, which the administration ultimately dismissed upon announcing that the GOP was not willing to consider a top-line value they found palatable.
And then there was (and I'm cringing as I type out this acronym) the BIF.
BIF = bipartisan infrastructure framework. Crafted in the basement hideaways of the Senate late into the night, over, at varying times, pizza, cannolis, wine, tacos, burritos (and many other food items I failed to track), the BIF formed the foundations of the bill the Senate is preparing to vote on.
A group of 10 bipartisan senators, led by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz, spent weeks crafting the BIF before, at long last, emerging from the White House in June and announcing that the BIF had transformed into the BID. That's right: the bipartisan infrastructure DEAL.
Now you would think an announced deal would be a huge relief for Senate reporters. No more closed-door meetings to sit on the floor in the hallway outside of right? Wrong.
Turning a deal in principal into legislative language that can be voted on the floor takes time. With any bill it always does, and in this case, it took several weeks, which meant several more weeks of Skittles, Twitter, sitting on trash cans in the hallway, rinsing and repeating.
Further complicating this whole scenario is the fact that all of our time in the Senate hallways could prove useless if House progressives decide the bill doesn't suit them. This is a distinct possibility, and one House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to avoid by promising not to pass the bipartisan bill in the House until the Senate sends her a second, larger, budget resolution that includes Biden's "human infrastructure" priorities.
The Senate is expected to get cracking on that budget bill in the coming days, but first, they've got to kick this one over the finish line. And on Thursday, procedural hijinks led to delay.
Failure to find unanimous agreement on amendments meant 13 hours of paralysis on the floor. But reporters had to hang nearby, unsure of whether senators might finally strike an agreement on how to proceed and pass the bill in the early morning hours.
Majority Whip John Thune told me at about 9 p.m. that he was "not feeling it." But after covering this bill for months, I couldn't bare to take a chance and miss final passage.
So I sat in the Senate with my colleagues from other TV and print outlets and we waited until we knew for sure whether the vote would occur.
In the meantime, we ate cold leftover chicken tenders and sat in the chamber trying to list every senator from memory on a scratch sheet of paper; we tweeted out gifs that only six other people intimately familiar with this procedural nightmare would find funny; and we ordered Chipotle and ate it on the steps of the Capitol while asking senators walking in and out when they thought we might see a final vote.
Most of them didn't know.
But the senators, like us, can appreciate that it's taking a rather long time. And the senators, like us, can decide they find the pink and orange painted skyline of the Washington monument behind the Capitol "snap worthy" and stop to take a picture.
And they, like us, can appreciate that passing historic legislation is always a more time-consuming process than we thought it would be. And they, like us, seem willing to wait the few extra days necessary to get it done.
