“ “We do not discuss politics at our meetings, and we do not take politics into account in our decisions” — Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, Sept. 21, 2016 ”

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s disavowal of political discussion at the Fed, made during her last press conference, caused a lot of eye-rolling. After all, how can the central bank not discuss the presidential election when absolutely everyone else is?

Actually, the answer is pretty straightforward, according to Gary Stern, the former head of the Minneapolis Fed, who attended the central bank’s closed-door policy meetings from 1980 until 2009.

“It has been understood for a long time that partisan politics is not on the Fed’s agenda,” Stern said in a telephone interview.

Over his 30 years attending the meetings, Stern said he never heard anyone discuss which candidate “people might prefer or might disdain.”

But surely the central bank has alternative scenarios prepared depending on who gets elected?

No so, Stern said.

For one, candidates are not often sufficiently explicit to allow you to do it, Stern said. And even if the candidate has an immediate economic policy initiative in mind, it may or may not get passed and the impact is likely one year away, he said.

Also, in the past, presidential candidates economic policies were not so far apart, the former Fed official said.

Stern admits that the economic policy debate between Republicans and Democrats often seems to suffer from a lack of gravitas.

For instance, he notes that most economists would defend free trade “vigorously,” whereas both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have not. Stern said he didn’t know if the problem was a “supply factor” of too few well-informed economists willing to discuss the issue or a “demand factor” of people not wanting to hear it.

Regardless, “the Fed is not a major player in that game,” he said.

Stern said there is a way to talk for Fed officials to discuss the outlook without mentioning the election. “They are aware there is an election next Tuesday,” he said.

Most economists think the Fed will decide to hold off a rate hike until its next meeting in December, in part to stay out of the spotlight with only six days to go until the election.

Read:Fed expected to tee up December interest-rate hike

The Fed has barely been able to raise interest rates off zero, engineering only one rate hike late last year and then holding off at all six meetings so far in 2016.

That’s another reason that all this worry about political interference on the Fed is misplaced, Stern said.

“Given where the Fed is sitting with such low rates, there is not much for the Fed to do except to go in one direction,” he said.