With things that are unprecedented but not necessarily illegal, what can you do? Some legal scholars think that the Senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold hearings, some think that "advise and consent" means that withholding hearings was a type or advisement, and others think that failure to act was a dereliction of duty and the court could have seated him. The fact is that only the federal courts system could have parsed this, and that created several problems. First, who has standing to sue? The president? Senate democrats? Garland himself? It's unclear who was injured and standing is a big deal in lawsuits. Second, the multitudes of injunctions and counter suits that were inevitable probably would have delayed the case until now anyway. Third, do you really want to mess with the independence of the Senate. Despite their current shortsightedness, they should be an independent body. All these things made it so no one could really do much beyond gripe in the media. The fact is that now there is a precedent, however. The Senate clearly can delay any nomination for as long as they please, and nobody can do a thing about it. I hope the Democrats don't take the same tack when they're back in power.