AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas' governor appointed a new justice to the state Supreme Court Thursday, filling the vacant seat of a recently retired judge.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Rebeca Huddle to replace Justice Paul Green, who stepped down in August. Huddle will serve through the end of 2022.

If Green had retired 10 days earlier, it would have been up to Texas voters to choose his replacement.

Huddle, a Republican, formerly served as justice on Texas' first court of appeals. She graduated from Stanford University and the University of Texas School of Law after growing up in El Paso, where her mother immigrated from Juarez, Mexico.

Abbott said he selected Huddle for her legal expertise, previous experience on the bench and because of “the life that she has lived, a life where she learned at an early age to work hard, to strive to achieve greater things."

The announcement was made at Stephen F. Austin High School in El Paso, where Huddle studied. Huddle said it is a “tremendous honor” to serve as a justice and pledged to “work hard every day to faithfully apply the law as written in every case that comes before the court."

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