Yvonne Rorrer, of Patrick County, has announced her candidacy for the Virginia House of Delegates, against incumbent Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart.
Rorrer, 47, said she decided to run after becoming involved with House Bill 1721, the Uniform Easement Relocation Act, which removes an arbitrary 10-year waiting period for easement relocation.
“I am currently in litigation over an easement. Basically, we own 20 acres of land, and there’s a driveway, it’s an old farm road, which affects many rural area farms, large pieces of land that people buy,” she said.
Rorrer said the driveway on her family’s property is 12 feet off their boundary line. Their neighbors filed a lawsuit for a prescriptive easement on that road.
“So, in the middle of our 20 acres, we now have a prescriptive easement running 12 feet off of my son’s bedroom window for landowners who live behind us who have road front property where they could build their own road” out to the main road, she said.
When the case went to court, the neighbors were granted the prescriptive easement because of its long-term use.
“By law in Virginia, you have to wait 10 years to move an easement from the date of its existence. We go back to court after the easement’s been established to move the easement back to the road that we had already built for these people, and they had been driving on for two-and-a-half years while we were in litigation. Just to get it off of our house, we spent almost $40,000 building a new road,” she said.
Although the judge leaned in her favor, he said there was no case law in Virginia determining when the 10-year period officially begins. “That’s why I started looking into how do I change a law because that 10-year period is arbitrary,” she said.
Rorrer contacted the Universal Laws Office, which found Del. Vivian Watts, D-Annandale, to sponsor HB 1721. After the bill passed unanimously, Rorrer said it proved her voice mattered.
“I had to testify in front of one of the House committees, and that’s kind of what got me interested in it and how all of the things work initially,” she said.
Rorrer said she also decided to run because Williams voted against HB 1727. According to the Legislative Information System (LIS), HB 1727 “provides that no parent and child relationship shall be established when a biological parent has been convicted of rape, carnal knowledge, or incest, or has been found by clear and convincing evidence to have engaged in such prohibited conduct, and the child was conceived of such violation or conduct.”
“In addition, I don’t like seeing one name on a ballot. I don’t think that’s fair for voters. I like to have options, and I think other people like to have options too,” she said.
Rorrer said her platform focuses on fundamental human rights.
“It’s social justice, children, the elderly. There’s a lot of people in the middle of the political landscape right now that feel forgotten. I hear that word a lot as I’m out talking to people,” she said, adding that she believes many people have been pulled to political extremes, leaving moderates without adequate representation.
“And I’m one of those people. I’m a moderate Democrat, my husband’s a Republican, we’re very balanced, and I just feel like I could do some good for this district. I have a lot in common with the people that live here, but my platform is mostly surrounding people and not politics,” she said.
Rorrer said she believes there is funding available to support needed programs, but it must be spent wisely.
“I volunteer with Focus on Youth—that has its funding from the state. Right now, with the way things are, we don’t know who’s going to have funding at the end of 2025, much less 2026. I think that’s hard to say right now,” she said.
Her top concerns include children and mental health. “If we don’t take care of our children and we don’t take care of mental health in this county, I’m worried about what the future is going to hold for our kids,” she said.
While there is some funding for mental health, Rorrer said cuts have already been made.
“Those things cannot be cut—those types of programs with the most vulnerable individuals in our communities, that funding cannot be cut out. I should be able to go to a therapist as quickly as I should be able to go to an urgent care, because those people—and people that need that type of help—need it quickly,” she said, adding that long wait times often lead to addiction, despair, or suicide.
Rorrer said she already has started drafting a list of legislation to pursue if elected. Her top priority is increasing penalties for child sexual abuse.
“I don’t believe that there should be plea bargains at all for that. I think that if somebody is convicted of child sexual abuse or charged with it, that’s what they should be charged with. They should go to court on what they’ve been charged with. There’s no plea bargains,” she said. “I don’t think that if somebody’s convicted or charged with raping a child that there should be any plea bargain on the table ever. I think that should go to court with exactly what they were charged with.”
She noted that a recently passed bill allows children to testify via video, helping them avoid facing their abusers in court.
“That takes away the part of the re-traumatization of that child in a court case, which is the reason why a lot of those cases get plea bargained in the first place. I know this from first-hand experience,” she said.
Rorrer also supports legislation aimed at improving the dignity of children in the foster care system. She estimates that roughly 2,400 children enter the system annually in Virginia. Locally, that includes 41 in Patrick County, 36 in Carroll County, 93 in Henry County, 18 in Floyd County, and 24 in the city of Galax.
“Those kids are removed from their homes in trash bags—literal trash bags. What that does mentally to a child when they’re already removed from a horrible situation—they’re sent out with a trash bag with their things—and what that tells a child or anybody about who they are subconsciously is trash, and that’s not okay,” she said.
Rorrer supports reintroducing a bill that would fund reusable luggage for children in foster care.
“I think it needs to be reintroduced personally because they didn’t take into account for the children who go to live with their family members that may not need luggage. They also didn’t take into account that the luggage can be sanitized or reused. They just took the average price of luggage times 2,400 and were like, ‘Hey, Virginia can’t afford it,’” she said.
She also wants to see changes to the Virginia Victim Fund, which currently allows only 180 days to file a claim after a violent crime.
“If you were the victim of a violent crime, the current Virginia Victim Fund says you only have 180 days to file those claims. Well, treatment for many of those violent crimes takes well over 180 days. Sometimes it takes over 180 days to even get in to see specialists who deal with those issues,” she said.
Additional ideas she supports include placing metal detectors in schools, increasing penalties for work zone violations, and extending deer hunting season by two weeks.
As she meets with constituents, Rorrer said she’s been collecting ideas for potential legislation.
“Some of them I still have to research, and I don’t know all the answers—I don’t. I do know what a delegate can and cannot do, and what I won’t do is make false promises. I’m not going to tell people I’m going to do something that I don’t know that I can do,” she said.
Rorrer lives in Stuart with her husband Ryan, and their children.
District 47 includes Patrick, Floyd, and Carroll counties, the western portion of Henry County, and the City of Galax.
Find more information at yvonnerorrer.com.
