The recent political crisis in Congress that caused a government shutdown and almost a government default has a lot of people pointing fingers at Republicans. But blame should also be levied upon procedural rules in the House of Representatives that allowed these few dozen intransigent GOP lawmakers to hold the entire country hostage until their demands were met.

If a continuing resolution and debt ceiling hike had been brought up for a vote in the House prior to the Oct. 1 deadline, it probably would have passed with bipartisan support from Democrats and moderate Republicans. Instead, this deadline passed without a vote on a continuing resolution, and the federal government ran out of funding. This legislation was not brought up for a vote in the House until Oct. 16, after the shutdown had already cost our economy an estimated $24 billion.

The blame for this unfortunate timing rests with House Speaker John Boehner and his decision to adhere to the Hastert rule. The Hastert rule is a practice that became recognized in 2003 when former speaker Dennis Hastert pledged not to bring any legislation to a vote unless it was supported by a majority of the House’s majority party. This unofficial rule has been practiced in Congress since Hastert’s time as speaker. As Lynne Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times pointed out, this was essentially a tactic Hastert developed to appease members of his party and maintain his speakership, and it worked. Hastert is the longest serving Republican speaker in history.

The current speaker has often chosen to follow this rule, but because of the rise of the Tea Party, he presides over a legislative body that is substantially more polarized than it was a decade ago. Getting a majority of the majority to support anything these days is nearly impossible, and his selective adherence to this principle has helped make the 113th Congress one of the least productive in US history.

Boehner is not above breaking this rule when it is politically prudent for his party to do so, as he has shown five times with the 113th Congress already. The most recent occurrence was the resolution that re-opened the government. Some pundits have pointed to this as evidence that the rule is now obsolete. But Boehner opted to violate this rule only after his party suffered horribly in the polls and the threat of national debt default became imminent. He has also opted to break the rule on other significant items such as Hurricane Sandy relief and the so-called fiscal cliff bill. While I commend him for having the will to incur the enmity of his own party to serve the interests of the nation, he doesn’t do this nearly enough.

Because current political conditions make passing legislation extremely difficult, and, given the many important issues on Congress’ plate, it’s time to consider amending the procedural rules in the House of Representatives. The speaker should not be given so much leeway in deciding what legislation is considered. This allows him or her to block any legislation they choose. That’s too much power for someone elected by a district of less than a million people to have in a democracy with a population of 300 million.

The Hastert rule underscores why the speaker and the other majority leaders that answer to him shouldn’t be the only people be able to control the agenda in the House of Representatives. A change as simple as granting some agenda-setting powers to the minority leader could go a long way toward making our democracy more effective by ensuring that legislation supported by a majority of Congress isn’t buried. It’s time to end this political stalemate and start passing laws with bipartisan support that move our country.