We certainly stand by the right to freedom of association. But that is, again, only of concern to those in the union. It's not of concern to the population at large. Our concern is only with picking someone local who we want to talk to on the regular. That is why we go through this hiring process, to select the person we want to talk to for the four years that follow, so that we will talk to them and not run away and hide from our democratic obligations. People have a tendency to do just that – that is, undemocratically never speak to their representative again – if they don't like the person, which entirely defeats the purpose of hiring a representative in the first place. Choose wisely.