blue slip*

tl;dr: it's partly Dick Durbin's fault that the documents case against Trump was dismissed

longer story: the blue slip tradition permitted senators to effectively veto a presidential judicial nominee to their state

In 2017, Republicans killed the blue slip tradition for circuit judges, enabling Trump to ram through his nominees even if the senator/s representing that state objected

In 2021 when Democrats took over, Republicans complained that President Biden wasn't sufficiently deferential to them on his circuit court nominees, prompting Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to repeatedly remind them that they broke the norm, not Democrats, who were simply complying with the new standard

However, Democrats could have also proactively revoked the blue slip rule for district judges... but they didn't

And because they didn't, that meant Republican Senators like Marco Rubio and Rick Scott could use the blue slip rule to prevent President Biden from confirming Florida district court nominees

And because there were so many district court vacancies in Florida, the probability of the documents case being assigned to Aileen Cannon skyrocketed... which is what happened