COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Republican Josh Hawley will serve on the Judiciary, Armed Services and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees when he takes office in the U.S. Senate next month.

Hawley announced the committee assignments Wednesday. He also will serve on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the Special Committee on Aging.

Hawley says the assignments mean Missouri will have “strong representation in some of the most important debates we will have as a nation …”

Hawley, currently Missouri’s first-term attorney general, defeated two-term incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in the November election.