This year, Americans will have an historic opportunity to “break up” with the Washington insiders and career politicians who have wrested control of our government and hijacked our institutions and democratic processes.One such figure is Sen. Patty Murray, the fourth-ranking member of Democrat leadership in the Senate.

Sen. Murray was first elected to the Senate by the good people of my state, Washington, back in 1992.Somewhere between then and now, however, she stopped representing this Washington and became a power player in the other Washington, emerging as a key figure in Harry Reid’s senatorial posse.

In her role as Senate Majority Conference Secretary, Sen. Murray has the power to take steps every day to grow jobs, really bring down health care costs, put a stop to the mortgaging of our children’s future, and ensure that families aren’t hit by rising taxes they can’t afford.With the folks back home, she works to cultivate the image of a fighter for the people of Washington, a longtime neighbor and friend—“just a mom in tennis shoes” as she said when running for Senate back in 1992— who they can trust to stand up for them.

But who does all this?Not Patty.

Instead, what Sen. Murray spends her time advancing is big government, and the agenda of the special interests that profit from it.

Rated the Senate’s most liberal member by National Journal in 2009, she’s been a consistent proponent of big spending, big regulation and, of course, big taxation—the stuff that gradually impinges on the forward-looking, entrepreneurial spirit that has defined my state for much of its history but which is imperiled by too much government today.

She has been a longtime, ardent advocate for a full-on government takeover of health care and, as a member of Senate Democrat leadership, a prime mover and shaker behind the health insurance reform bill that is now the law of the land.

Tellingly, the industries that give the most to her, to the tune of about $1 million thus far this cycle, are lawyers and lobbyists— the mark of the consummate Washington insider.The fact that lobbyists give so much to her underlines the full extent to which she has become an open purveyor of corporate welfare.

She consistently carries water for special interests like the unions who, in my Washington, are empowered to extract dues and fees even from non-union workers and who, in her Washington, remain committed to instituting “card check” legislation nationwide.

The effect of this has been noticeable, too: Her approval rating in our state now hovers at just over 40 percent.

Here, it is clear, just as across the country, many people are tired of this nonsense.People have had enough with business and politics-as-usual, the typical, predictable inside-the-beltway shenanigans, and politics and policies that feel outmoded, last century, and wrong-headed.Quite frankly, they have had enough, and they are looking for something different this November.

For those of us here in the Evergreen State, represented by a three-term, do-nothing senator, it couldn’t be clearer: It’s time for change—in both Washingtons.