“Four Seats”

“Four Seats”

HollywoodOn Productions: Janet Donovan & Brendan Kownacki
Photo credit: Daniel Swartz

“My mom told me at age three that I demanded an agent,” Aaron Cooley told Hollywood on the Potomac regarding his earliest childhood memories. He obviously got one, presumably just not at age three. The child actor turned screen writer, turned producer, turned novelist was in Washington promoting his new book Four Seats, a Supreme Court thriller that brings terror and tragedy to the court as six bombs tear through their ‘temple of law,’ killing 124 people, including four Supreme Court Justices.

fourseats_bookcover

The timing of Cooley’s visit could not have been more auspicious with several heavy hitting decisions before the court, one of them on same sex marriage. The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.  Now imagine, if you will, that just prior to the vote that such a tragedy had actually occurred and four seats were left vacant.  It begs these questions: How does the system proceed; how are the seats filled; how does the timing of the mourning process affect the replacing of the Judges?  “I started to think about all the hypotheticals,” Aaron explained, “that could go into a confirmation process. The court would be frozen. They would be very paralyzed.”

Four seats (Photo by Dan Swartz)

Cooley was appropriately joined by The Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Senator Amy Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that includes The Supreme Court Justices, at an intimate book party and dinner.  Like the Court, the conversation was not taped, but we suspect it gave both some food for thought.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson meets Aaron (Photo by Dan Swartz)

Aaron Cooley and Secretary Jeh Johnson

Hollywood on the Potomac sat down with Cooley to discuss how he went from child actor to Hollywood producer to a best-selling novelist and what to do if Four Seats are simultaneously left vacant at The Supreme Court:

The book trailer:

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