Josh Burbrink

Josh Burbrink graduated from Columbus East High School. Burbrink earned an associate degree from the ITT Technical Institute in 2006. Burbrink's career experience includes working as a business intelligence analyst.[1]

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am running for State Representative in House District 59 because our community deserves someone who will show up and do the work.

I grew up in Bartholomew County, graduated from Columbus East, and put down roots in Harrison Township. Today I live on a small hobby farm with my wife Rachel, a librarian at the Bartholomew County Public Library, and our young daughter. My weekends are spent in the garden, on a fire truck, or at a Friends of the Library meeting.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

I will work to protect public schools.

Local schools run on property taxes. The Indiana General Assembly has cut that revenue without sending a dollar of state money to replace it. Meanwhile the state is sitting on a multi-billion-dollar surplus that keeps growing.

My daughter will eventually go to public school, so I am personally invested in making sure all public schools have what they need to succeed.I will work to protect our Libraries.

The Bartholomew County Public Library is projected to lose $761,490 between 2026 and 2028. Then the legislature passed HB 1406, removing the cap on how much a county board can cut a library's budget in a single year. Ryan Lauer voted yes.I will work to protect our fire departments.

Township volunteer fire departments depend on property tax revenue, which the Indiana General Assembly has cut. The only fix offered is letting the county raise your income tax to backfill. That is a tax shift, not tax relief. I sit on the Harrison Township Volunteer Fire Company board. I see the pressure up close, and want to make sure that if you call for help from emergency services, they're equipped to help you.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Hoosiers lost the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies and families. Government shouldn't be in that room.

SB 76 bars local governments from setting their own immigration-enforcement priorities and threatens $10,000 fines for stepping out of line.

Indiana cut public health funding while more than 70% of our counties are medically underserved and our maternal and infant mortality rates rank among the worst in the nation.

SB 182 and bills like it single out who can use which space at school. Indiana kids deserve to learn, not to be made into a wedge issue.

Indiana is last in the nation for pollution. 70% of our waterways unsafe to swim in. A business climate ranking that fell from 5th to 12th