Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been picked to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s first address to Congress on Feb. 24. He will speak from Baton Rouge after Obama’s speech.

Jindal’s selection was announced Wednesday in a joint statement from House and Senate GOP leaders.

“Gov. Jindal embodies what I have long said: the Republican Party must not be simply the party of ‘opposition,’ but the party of better solutions,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

The 37-year-old Jindal is viewed as a rising star in the GOP, and he has taken an increasingly high-profile national role now that Republicans no longer control any body of government in Washington, D.C.

Next month Jindal will headline the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual dinner in Washington.

Jindal was elected to Congress in 2004, and he represented Louisiana’s 1st district until he was sworn in as governor in early 2008.