COEUR d’ALENE — It’s rare when both candidates for a major office agree completely on any key issue.

But that’s the case as State Sen. Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, and private attorney Robyn Brody of Rupert battle for a vacant spot on the Idaho Supreme Court.

They each concede that the elephant in the room — so to speak — is McKenzie’s 14-year tenure in the Legislature, and the partisan voting record he brings into this contest for the state’s highest court.

McKenzie has touted his experience and claimed voters thus know exactly where he stands.

Brody, on the other hand, told The Press editorial board in a visit Thursday that McKenzie’s stance is precisely why legislators should not be making hops to the court.

“It’s very simple,” Brody said. “He’s been making laws, and I’ve been making sense of them.

“That’s what we’ve been doing in our careers, and that’s what the very clear separation of powers in both the Idaho and the United States constitutions are all about.”

Supreme Court races are nonpartisan. They’re supposed to be contested without any party affiliation or funding.

But this is Idaho and Brody understands.

Brody got a bug for communication and the law with a run for student council president in the eighth grade.

“I know it’s geeky and nerdy,” she said, picking up a little model ship from a conference room table and turning it around several times. “But I want to examine things, see how they’re put together, how they work.

“And I feel that way about the law. I love to look at the law.”

Brody certainly didn’t glide into her law practice, followed by this run for the state’s top court, because she was born with any proverbial silver spoon in her mouth.

Neither of her parents graduated from high school, yet she says she always felt loved and encouraged to achieve by her family and friends — people who help her with multi-tasking to this day.

“I’m about as blue-collar as it gets,” Brody said, “so I can relate to my clients, and I would understand the issues that come before the Idaho Supreme Court.

“I’ve put 23,000 miles on my car — plus flights and rentals and whatever else — because I think folks in this state need to know about the court. They hear the words ‘supreme court’ and they think of all the famous cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Listen, a state court is nothing like that at all. I like to call it ‘The Court of the Ordinary.’

“The truth is that the Idaho Supreme Court will hear things like contract disputes, real estate cases, things like that — not the sexy stuff you see on TV.

“For the sort of thing handled at the state level, you need to be a hard worker who really loves the law — not the spotlight. And I feel like I work harder than anybody.”

Brody is well aware that she’s facing an establishment Republican who has garnered support on the Second Amendment front.

“That’s why I want to get out and talk to people,” she said. “I need to explain that I have nothing against the Second Amendment, but that no one running to be a judge should offer an opinion on any issue — not until they’re actually on the bench and a specific case comes to the court.

“Our citizens need to understand the role of our court, not just hear more of the same blanket statements.”

Brody did agree to answer one Second Amendment question: Are there guns in the Brody household?

“Absolutely,” she said. “I mean, hey, we live out in Rupert.”

This already unique race between a legislator and a mostly under-the-radar attorney — a solo practitioner who beat the entire field in the primary — has yet one more oddity to it.

Idaho is one of only two states without a woman on its highest court.

Is that bias or just coincidence?

“I’m not reading anything into it at all,” Brody said. “In every part of the state I’ve visited, I’ve had people say, ‘We need a woman on our court.’”

Brody believes she’s ready to fill that role.

Asked casually about her plans if McKenzie prevails in November, Brody replied: “I’m not putting in all this effort to lose. My plan is to serve on the Idaho Supreme Court.”