Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said in a tweet that the shutdown will end on Wednesday, now that House Republicans failed to pass their own bill last night.
Having exhausted all alternatives, today looks to be the day we do the right thing and end the shutdown.
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) October 16, 2013
Flake opposed using a shutdown as leverage to defund Obamacare from the start because he didn’t think the strategy would work.
“If you’re going to take a stand on something, the other side has to fear a shutdown,” Flake said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe at the beginning of October. “In this case, I think the Democrats knew that if there were to be a shutdown, that it would be Republicans who take the blame. And so you’re threatening to do something that the other side isn’t very fearful of.”